Human Poverty Index

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Human Poverty Index

The Human Poverty Index is an indication of the standard of living

Standard of living

The standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people, and the way these goods and services are distributed within a population....
in a country, developed by the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, Social change, human rights and achieving world peace....
(UN). For highly developed countries, the UN considers that it can better reflect the extent of deprivation

Poverty

Poverty is the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include the lack of access to opportunities such as education and employment which aid the escape from poverty and/or allow one to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens....
compared to the Human Development Index

Human Development Index

The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed country, developing country....
.

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." The formula for calculating it is:

: Probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 (times 100)

Adult illiteracy rate

Unweighted average of population without sustainable access to an improved water source and children under weight for age

Adults lacking functional literacy skills

Population below income poverty line (50% of median adjusted household disposable income)

Rate of long-term unemployment (lasting 12 months or more)

The last report, 2007-2008, only has a ranking for 19 of the 22 countries with the highest Human Development Index.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Human Poverty Index'

Start a new discussion about 'Human Poverty Index'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

The Human Poverty Index is an indication of the standard of living

Standard of living

United Nations

Poverty

Human Development Index

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." The formula for calculating it is:

HPI-1 =

: Probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 (times 100)

Adult illiteracy rate

Unweighted average of population without sustainable access to an improved water source and children under weight for age

The human poverty index for selected OECD countries (HPI-2)

HPI-2 =

: Probability at birth of not surviving to age 60 (times 100)

Adults lacking functional literacy skills

Population below income poverty line (50% of median adjusted household disposable income)

Rate of long-term unemployment (lasting 12 months or more)

The last report, 2007-2008, only has a ranking for 19 of the 22 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 Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....	6.3	6.7	7.5	1.1	6.5
2	Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....	6.8	7.9	7.9	0.5	6.4
3	Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....	8.1	8.3	10.5	1.8	7.3
4	Finland Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland , is a Nordic countries situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland....	8.1	9.4	10.4	1.8	5.4
5	Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....	8.2	10.3	9.6	0.8	5.6
6	Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....	10.3	8.6	14.4	5.8	8.4
7	Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....	10.7	7.2	15.9	1.5	7.6
8	Canada Canada Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....	10.9	8.1	14.6	0.5	11.4
9	Luxembourg Luxembourg Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....	11.1	9.2
1.2	6.0
10	Austria Austria Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....	11.1	8.8
1.3	7.7
11	France France France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....	11.2	8.9
4.1	7.3
12	Japan Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....	11.7	6.9
1.3	11.8
13	Australia Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....	12.1	7.3	17.0	0.9	12.2
14	Belgium Belgium * A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....	12.4	9.3	18.4	4.6	8.0
15	Spain Spain Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....	12.5	7.7
2.2	14.2
16	United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....	14.8	8.7	21.8	1.2	12.5
17	United States United States The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...	15.4	11.6	20.0	0.4	17.0
18	Ireland Republic of Ireland Ireland is an Island country in north-western Europe. The modern Sovereignty state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned by the British on 3 May 1921....	16.0	8.7	22.6	1.5	16.2
19	Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....	29.8	7.7	47.0	3.4	12.7

The countries ranked in the top 21 by HDI that are not on this list are Iceland

Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
.

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 7.1% for Japan to 11.8 for the USA. This is the indicator that is best known for all countries (including the ones not on the list). The USA has specific values associated with disease characteristics of poverty. 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 (% of people scoring in the range called “Level 1” in the International Adult Literacy Survey, age 16-65, 1994-2003). Varies from 7.5% for Sweden to 47.0% for Italy. These figures are higher than most commonly cited illiteracy rates
List of countries by literacy rate

List of countries by literacy rate, as included in the United Nations Development Programme Report 2007/2008....
due to the choice of the literacy test.
Long-term unemployment (12 months or more, % of labour force), 2005. Varies from 0.4% for Norway to 5.0% for Germany. This indicator has by far the greatest variation, with a value as high as 9.3% at HDI position 37.
Population below 50% of median
Median

In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the number separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half....
adjusted household disposable income (%), 1994-2002. Varies from 5.4% for Finland to 17% for the USA.

Human Poverty Index

The human poverty index for developing countries (HPI-1)

The human poverty index for selected OECD countries (HPI-2)

See also

Sources