Sri Lanka Human Development Report 2012.pdf

Technical Note
Concepts, Definitions and Methodology for
Computing the Human Development Indices
Human Development Index
The HDI is a summary measure of human development. It
measures the average achievements in a country in three basic
dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life;
education, or access to knowledge; and a decent standard of
living (Table T.1)
mean years of adult education and 18 years of expected years
of schooling for children of school-entrance age, respectively.
These values are based on the actual values during 1980 to 2011.
A decent standard of living is measured by GNI (gross national
income) per capita expressed in PPP (purchasing power parity)
US dollars. The minimum value is $100 (PPP); the maximum
value is $107,721 (PPP). The logarithm of income is usually
used in the calculation to reflect the diminishing importance of
income.
Table T.1: Dimensions of the Human Development Index
Three dimensions Health Education (or access to knowledge) living
standards
Measured by Mean years of adult Expected years of Per capita
life expectancy education, which is the schooling for children consumption
at birth average number of of school-entrance expenditure
years of education age, which is the total
Four indicators received in a life-time number of years of
by people aged 25
years and older
schooling a child of
school-entrance age
can expect to receive
if prevailing patterns
of age-specific
enrolment rates stay
the same throughout
the child’s life
The HDI sets a minimum and a maximum for each dimension,
called ‘goalposts’, and then shows where each country stands
in relation to these, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. The
health component is calculated by using a minimum value
of 20 years of life expectancy and a maximum value of 83.4
years. These are the observed minimum and maximum values
in the time series from 1980 to 2011. The minimums for both
education indicators are 0, and the maximum values are 13.1
For Sri Lanka, data on per capita GNI at district level are not
available. Per capita consumption expenditure at district level is
used as a proxy.
The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are aggregated
into a composite index using a geometric mean. Once the
minimum and maximum values are defined, the sub-indices are
calculated as follows:
Dimension index =
actual value for the country or districtminimum
value)
maximum value-minimum value
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