What is human poverty index?

Answer 1

The Human Poverty Index (HPI) is used by the United Nations to indicate the standard of living in a specific country. It was first launched in 1990. It measures the amount of deprivation people experience in different countries. According to the measurements of deprivations countries are then ranked according to their HPI. Every year the UN publishes a list of countries, which rank the countries according to their HPI. This list shows which countries has the highest to lowest standards of living. Factors which are taken into consideration when ranking countries include: The probability at birth of not surviving to age 60, People lacking functional literacy skills, Long-term unemployment, and Population below 50% of median income. According to the 2009 list Norway is ranked number 1, followed by Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan. The 10 lowest ranked countries are Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Niger.

Answer 2

The advantages of the Human Poverty Indices 1 and 2 include:

-the nature of the composite measurements of deprivation

As data from multiple facets of a society is used to construct the index, the information is less biased towards a particular area than a singular index such as GDP.

-the distinguishment between less developed countries and OECD nations

The seperation of indices and the different measurements used for those allow for a clearer comparison of deprivation amongst LEDCs or MEDCs. This is especially important because some measurements are irrelevant to one group of countries; for instance, illiteracy rates and proportion of children underweight are far less miniscure in MEDCs, and functional literacy skills are very rare in most LEDCs. It would not be reasonable to include those irrelevant factors within the index, as they would display such a huge difference that other deprivations cannot be accurately compared.

-HPI-2 includes a component of social exclusion

HPI-2 is the only index (out of HDI, HPI and GDI) which includes the component of social exclusion. It measures this by long-term (1year or more)unemployment rate. This is an indicator of exclusion because economic disparities in MEDCs often result in displacement to cheaper land.