Human development data released

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published a new study on human development in the world. The 2013 Human Development Report presents Human Development Index (HDI) values and rankings for 187 countries and UN-recognized territories, along with the Inequality-adjusted HDI for 132 countries, the Gender Inequality Index for 148 countries, and the Multidimensional Poverty Index for 104 countries.

“The HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.” UN research groups base the HDI primarily on international data from the United Nations Population Division, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the World Bank.

In the high human development category, Georgia is positioned at 72 with an HDI of 0.745 for 2012.The HDI value has increased from 0.713 to 0.745 since 2005, but it is still below the average of 0.758 for countries in the high human development group and below the average of 0.771 for countries in Europe and Central Asia. However, it is still higher than the HDL of Armenia which is 0.729, making the country 87th on the ranking.

Since 2005, an increase in life expectancy at birth (from 72.8 to 73.9 years) and GNI per capita (from 3,650 PPP$ to 5,005) has been recorded.

Assessing the progress compared to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Ukraine, shows that Georgia has been experiencing the most stable development of DHI among the three countries.

“HDI masks inequality in the distribution of human development across the population at the country level.” The UNDP report also provides the ranking of The Gender Inequality Index (GII) in the country. GII is a reflection of gender-based inequalities in three dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment and economic activity. “Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates; empowerment is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each gender and attainment at secondary and higher education by each gender; and economic activity is measured by the labor market participation rate for each gender.”

Georgia’s value of GII is 0.438, ranking the country 81 among 148 countries in the 2012 rankings. “6.6 percent of parliamentary seats are held by women, and 89.7 percent of adult women have reached a secondary or higher level of education compared to 92.7 percent of their male counterparts. For every 100,000 live births, 67 women die from pregnancy related causes; and the adolescent fertility rate is 39.5 births per 1,000 live births.” The Labor force participation rate shows that only 55.8 % of Georgian women are employed, whilst the same rate for men is 74.2%.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) shows the multiple deprivations in the same households in education, health and standard of living. In order to value up the MPI, all of the necessary indicators are taken from the same household survey. “If the household deprivation score is 33.3 percent or greater, that household (and everyone in it) is multi-dimensionally poor. Households with a deprivation score greater than or equal to 20 percent, but less than 33.3 percent are vulnerable to or at risk of becoming multi-dimensionally poor.”

Based on the data collected in 2005, the average percentage of deprivation experienced by people living in multi-dimensional poverty in Georgia was 35.2 percent. Regrettably the latest MPI for Georgia could not be provided in the report, as the most recent survey data available for estimating MPI figures were collected in 2005.