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The Human Poverty Index is an indication of the standard of living in a country, developed by the United Nations (UN). The UN considers this a better indicator than the Human Development Index, which in turn is considered a better indicator than the Gross Domestic Product.
The human poverty index for developing countries (HPI-1)
The Human Development Reports website summarizes this as "A composite index measuring deprivations in the three basic dimensions captured in the human development index — a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living." See * for the details of calculating this index.
The human poverty index for selected OECD countries (HPI-2)
The Human Development Reports website summarizes this as "A composite index measuring deprivations in the three basic dimensions captured in the human development index — a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living — and also capturing social exclusion." See * for the details of calculating this index.
The last report, 2003, only has a ranking for 17 of the 21 countries with the highest Human Development Index. The ranking is as follows (with the country with the lowest amount of poverty at the top):
| ranking | country | HPI-2 | Probability at birth of not surviving to age 60 (%) | People lacking functional literacy skills (%) | Long-term unemployment (%) | Population below 50% of median income (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweden | 6.5 | 7.3 | 7.5 | 1.1 | 6.6 |
| 2 | Norway | 7.2 | 8.3 | 8.5 | 0.2 | 6.9 |
| 3 | Finland | 8.4 | 10.2 | 10.4 | 2.4 | 5.4 |
| 4 | Netherlands | 8.4 | 8.7 | 10.5 | 1.6 | 8.1 |
| 5 | Denmark | 9.1 | 11.0 | 9.6 | 0.9 | 9.2 |
| 6 | Germany | 10.2 | 9.2 | 14.4 | 4.2 | 7.5 |
| 7 | Luxembourg | 10.3 | 9.7 | - | 0.5 | 3.9 |
| 8 | France | 10.8 | 10.0 | - | 3.3 | 8.0 |
| 9 | Spain | 11.0 | 8.8 | - | 4.6 | 10.1 |
| 10 | Japan | 11.1 | 7.5 | - | 1.4 | 11.8 |
| 11 | Italy | 12.2 | 8.6 | - | 6.1 | 14.2 |
| 12 | Canada | 12.2 | 8.7 | 16.6 | 0.7 | 12.8 |
| 13 | Belgium | 12.4 | 9.4 | 18.4 | 3.2 | 8.0 |
| 14 | Australia | 12.9 | 8.8 | 17.0 | 1.4 | 14.3 |
| 15 | United Kingdom | 14.8 | 8.9 | 21.8 | 1.3 | 12.5 |
| 16 | Ireland | 15.3 | 9.3 | 22.6 | 3.2 | 12.3 |
| 17 | United States | 15.8 | 12.6 | 20.7 | 0.3 | 17.0 |
The top 21 HDI countries not on this list are Iceland, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand.
Note that not all countries are included because data for the indicators are not always available. So positions could change if they were. Especially countries at the bottom could drop considerably if the list were extended. For specific values for other countries than the ones on the list, see source links below.
Indicators used are:
- Probability at birth of not surviving to age 60 (% of cohort), 2000-2005. Varies from 7.3% for Sweden to 12.6 for the USA. This is the indicator that is best known for all countries (including the ones not on the list). Worse values start only at position 35 of the HDI, indicating that many countries could climb on an extended list based on this, knocking down lower ranked countries on the above list.
- People lacking functional literacy skills (% age 16-65), 1994-1998. Varies from 7.5% for Sweden to 22.6% for Ireland.
- Long-term unemployment (% of labour force), 2001. Varies from 0.2% for Norway to 6.1% for Italy. This indicator has by far the greatest variation, with a value as high as 9.3% at HDI position 39.
- Population below 50% of median income (%), 1990-2000. Varies from 3.9% for Luxembourg to 17% for the USA.
The population with an income below 11$ per day is not used in the calculation (it is known for too few countries), but this shows a striking variation with scores over 10% for Australia, the UK and the USA, but an extremely low score of 0.3% for Luxembourg, so this could have changed the list considerably if it had been included.
Above countries also score high on the List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, but Finland has a much higher ranking here and, conversely, Qatar is not even on this list at all. It is noteworthy that the USA has one of the lowest scores for long-term unemployment, and they also lead the world in private ownership of homes and automobiles.
Sources
- http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/indicator/indic_27_1_1.html
- http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/indicator/pdf/hdr03_table_4.pdf (more detail)
"Human Poverty Index"