World Bank’s Human Capital Index 2020: India Ranks 116th

The World Bank has released the annual Human Capital Index on September 17, 2020. In the index, India has ranked 116th position with its  score of 0.49. In 2018, India  had scored 0.44.

 Key findings

• In 2019, India’s rank is 115 out of 157 countries.
• The report highlights that, there has been a major decline in remittances.
•  It also reports that total income has declined by 11% to 12%.
• According to the report, more than 1 billion children are out of school amid the covid-19.
• Health services to women and children have been disturbed.
• Children are unable to get their crucial vaccinations.

Key Facts

• The index include education and health data from 174 countries.
• It has covered 98 % of the world population.
• This year, the report has provided a pre-pandemic baseline on the education and health.
• The theme of this year  is human capital in the time of covid-19.

Human Capital Index (HCI)

The Human Capital Index is prepared by the World Bank. It ranks countries based on their potential  to mobilise the economic and professional potential of its citizens. The index is based on three pillars namely,

1. survival under which share of children surviving till the age of 5 is calculated.
2. school under which quantity and quality of education is included.
3. Health under which survival rates and healthy growing among children are included.

The HCI was first published by Simeon Djankov and Federica Saliola under the World Development Report 2019.  The human capital measurement was first started by Nobel Prize winner Paul Romer.
It is important to note that the Human capital Index is different from the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI is released by the United Nations development programme that uses per capita income of the countries to rank them where as HCI is based on countries’ potential to mobilise the human capital. 

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2020