Human Development
Growth and Development
Growth and development both refer to changes over a period of time. Growth s quantitative i.e. It can be measured and its value is neutral. It shows changes both in negative as well as in positive ways. Development is a qualitative change which is always value positive. Development occurs when positive growth takes place. But positive growth does not always lead to development. Development only occurs when there is a positive change in quality.
For example, if the population of a city grows from one lakh to two lakhs over period of time, we say that the city has grown. But, if the facilities like housing, provision of basic services and other characteristics remain the same, hen this growth has not been accompanied by development.
Concept of Human Development
For many decades, the level of development of a country was measured only facilities such as housing, provision of basic services and other characteristics in terms of the growth of an economy. This meant that the bigger the economy of a country more developed it was considered even though the remained the same.
The idea of human development came from the aspects of development like the quality of life people enjoy in a coun freedoms they enjoy. where people The basic aim of development is creating conditions a country, the opportunities they have and live meaningful lives. It means that people must be healthy, be able to develop their talents, participate in society and be free to achieve their goals. The late eighties and early nineties mark the origin of the idea of human development. The contribution of two South Asian economists. Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq and Prof Amartya Sen are important in this field.
The concept of human development was introduced development that enlarges people's choices and improves their lives. These choices of the changing. This concept gives people described it as people keep on a central position in the idea of development. Mahbub-ul-Haq created the Human Development Index in 1990.
the concept of human development has Programme to publish the Human Development rank-wise list of all member countries according to Report (HDR) annually. This report provides a level of Human Development.
According to Prof. Amartya Sen, the main objective of development is to increase freedom (or decreasing unfreedom) because increasing freedom is one of the most effective ways of bringing about development. His work explores the role of social and political institutions and processes in increasing freedom.
Aspects of Human Development
The most important aspects of human development are long and healthy life, ability to gain knowledge and having enough means to live a decent life.
Thus, we can say that the key areas in human development are access to resources, health and education. Most of the time, people fail to have the capability and freedom to make even basic choices.
For example, an uneducated child cannot make the choice to be a doctor because her choice has got limited by her lack of education. Similarly, a person who is poor cannot choose to take medical treatmer for diseases because his choice is limited by lack of resources.
🔹The factors responsible for this are:
🔹Inability to acquire knowledge
🔹Material poverty
🔹Social discrimination
🔹Inefficiency of institutions and other reasons
These reasons prevent them from leading healthy lives, being able to get educated or to have the me to live a decent life.
Building people's potentials in the areas of health education and access to resources are important enlarge their choices so that they can obtain the benefits of development.
The Four Pillars of Human Development
The idea of human development is supported on four
Equity
pillars. These are as follows: equality
At means that equal access to opportunity should be give so all without any discrimination on the basis of gende race, income, caste and creed For example, in any country, it will be interesting to note that dropouts from school belong to which community or group and what might be the reasons for this situation.
In India, a large number of girls and persons belonging socially and educationally backward groups drop out of schools. This indicates how the choices of these groups limited by not having equal access to knowledge.
Sustainability
To achieve sustainable human development, it is must It refers to continuity in the availability of opportunities give equal opportunities to all generations without any T misuse of natural resources and environment All the resources such as environmental, financial and human resources should be used keeping in mind the future generation.
Productivity
It refers to productivity of human labour or productivi in terms of human work. So, this productivity must be continuously enriched by building capabilities in people are considered the real wealth of nations.
Thus, for better work efficiency, it is important to put efforts to increase their knowledge or provide better he facilities.
Empowerment
It refers to having power that enables people to make choices. The increasing freedom and capability give su power. The government should provide good governa and people oriented policies to empower people. The government should give special emphasis on socially an economically disadvantaged groups to empower them.
Approaches to Human Development
A number of ways are present to look at the problems of human development. Some important approaches in this regard are:
Income Approach : This is one of the earliest approaches to human development in which human development is linked to income.
According to this idea, the level of income decides the level of freedom an individual enjoys.
It is assumed that if a nation has higher level of income, it leads to higher level of human development.
Welfare Approach : This approach puts human beings at a central position where he/she is the beneficiary or target of all developmental activities. Here, people are only passive recipients and not participants in the process of development.
This approach emphasises that it is the responsibility of the government to maximise its expenditure on welfare of people like on education, health and social amenities.
Basic/Minimum Needs Approach
This approach was proposed by International Labour Organisation (ILO). This approach considered six basic needs as important, these include health, education, food, water supply, sanitation and housing. This emphasises more on the fulfilment of basic needs of certain sections and the question of human choices is ignored.
Capabilities Approach :
Prof Amartya Sen is associated with this approach. He advocated building human capabilities in the areas of health, education and access to resources in order to increase the level of human development.
Measuring Human Development
UNDP. The Human Development Index and Human Poverty Index are two important indices to measure human development by
Human Development Index (HDI)
In 1990, Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq created the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI is a measure for assessing the progress of a country in three basic dimensions of human development i.e. health, education and access to resources. These rankings are based on a score between 0 to 1.
(i) Health : The life expectancy at birth is chosen as an indicator to assess health. It is chosen as an indicator because higher life expectancy provides the people a greater chance of living longer and healthier lives.
(ii) Education The two indicators i.e. the adult literacy rate and the gross enrolment ratio are chosen to represent access to knowledge. The number of adults who are able to read and write and the number of children enrolled in schools represents the scenario of education in a particular country.
(iii) Access to Resources : Purchasing power (in US dollars) of people in a country represents access to resources of its population.
HDI Weightage
Each dimension is given a weightage of 1/3. The Human Development Index is a sum total of the weights assigned to all these dimensions. The level of human development would be high if score is more close to one.
For example, if a country has a score of 0.983, it would come in very high human development category. Whereas, if a country has a score of 0.268, it would be in very low human development category.
Thus, we can say that HDI measures attainments in human development because it shows the achievements of a country in the dimensions of health, education and access to resources. But it is not the most reliable method of measuring human development as it does not represent distribution (equal or unequal) of resources.
Human Poverty Index (HPI)
Human Poverty Index is another measure which is associated with Human Development Index. It measures the shortfall in human development. It is considered a non-income measure.
HPI takes into account the following indicators to show the shortfall in human development of a region.
🔹Probability of not surviving till the age of 40.
🔹Adult illiteracy rate.
🔹Number of people who do not have access to clean water.
🔹Number of small children who are underweight.
Unlike Human Development Index, HPI is more revealing of the Human Development. But together, both the measures provide a clear picture of the human development of any country.
Gross National Happiness (GNH)
Gross National Happiness is a holistic and sustainable approach to development. Material progress and technological developments are approached more cautiously taking into consideration the harm that they may cause to the environment or other aspects of social, cultural and spiritual life of the people. Bhutan is the only country in the world to officially proclaim the Gross National Happiness (GNH) as the measure of the country's progress. Material progress cannot come at the cost of happiness. Gross National Happiness encourages us to think of the spiritual, non-material and qualitative aspects of development.
Other Ways to Measure Human Development
🔹The existing ways to measure human development are continuously being refined.
🔹Researchers are engaged to find out newer ways which can measure different elements of human development.
🔹Researchers recently identified a link between the two components like the level of corruption and political freedom in a particular region.
🔹Discussions are also being held on Political Freedom Index and level of corruption in countries in the world.
International Comparison of Human Development
International comparisons of human development give interesting results.
These can be analysed as:
🔹There is no direct relation of human development with size of the territory and Per Capita Income (PCI).
🔹Many a times, it is seen that smaller countries posses higher ranks in human development report as compared to larger countries.
🔹Likewise, relatively poorer nations secured higher rank than their richer neighbours in terms of hum development.
For example, countries like Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago secured a higher rank than India in the Hun Development Index despite having smaller economi Similarly, Kerala performs better than Punjab and Gujarat in terms of human development despite hav low PCL.
Classification of Countries on the Basis of Human Development Scores
Countries have been classified into four groups on th basis of the human development scores earned by the V
(ⅰ) Countries with Very High HDI : These country have a score of over 0.800 according to HDR. M 2018. This group includes 59 countries.
(ii) Countries with High HDI : These countries have secured a score between 0.701 upto 0.799. This group includes 53 countries as per HDR, 2018 These countries are characterised by a lot of investment in social sector like in education, better health care facilities.
Besides, a higher investment in people and good governance are also the contributing factors which put these countries into this category. A large number of these countries have been the former imperial powers which do not have much social diversity. This list has many European countries which represent the industrialised Western world But there are many countries that are non-European in this list.
(iii) Countries with Moderate HDI : These countries have a score between 0.550 upto 0.700. The list contains 39 countries as per HDR, 2018. Most S the countries in the list have emerged recently after the period of Second World War. Some fro this group were former colonies and some countries were formed after the disintegration of erstwhile USSR in 1990.
Many of these countries are trying to improve their human development score by adopting mo people-oriented policies and reducing social discrimination. Higher social diversity is predominant here as compared to countries hav higher development scores. Many countries in these group have faced political instability and social uprising in the recent past.
iv) Countries with Low HDI: 38 countries have low level of human development with a score of below 0.549 as per HDR, 2018. The reasons for this low rank is that most of these countries are facing political turmoil and social instability. For example, civil war, famine or a high incidence of diseases. Thus, there is an urgent need to pay attention towards these situations and try to minimise the vulnerabilities through well-planned policies.
India's rank according to the HDI report, 2018 was 130. India's HDI value was 0.640, which puts the country in the medium human development category.
Note : According to the Human Development Report, 2020 India is ranked on 131.
Myths and Facts about Human Development
The international comparisons of human development 1st shows us that people often tend to blame low levels of human development on culture religion or a particular f community. Such beliefs are misleading and in reality, there are other factors which keeps a country in the low HDI List.
These are:
🔹Pattern of government expenditure on the social sector.
🔹Political instability in the country.
🔹Amount of freedom people have.
Countries with high level of human development have has the following characteristics which place these countries in into the high HDI list:
🔹More investment in the social sectors.
🔹Freedom from political turmoil and instability
🔹Distribution of the resources is equitable.
On the other hand, places with lower levels of Human development have the following characteristics.
🔹More spending on defence as compared to social sectors.
🔹Political instability and turmoil.
🔹Inability to initiate accelerated economic development.