Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

I just caught sight of the Human Development Index on wiki, and had a look through.

I'm assuming that this is a measure of how devloped a country is.

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Originally Posted by Wiki

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide

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Interesting positionings were:

Ireland: 0.960 5th
USA: 0.950 15th
Spain: 0.949 16th
Greece: 0.947 18th, ahead of Italy 0.945
UK: 0.942 21st
Germany: 0.940 23rd!! [so that's all ok then!!! lol]


Top 5 are:

Iceland 0.968
Norway 0.968
Canada 0.967
Australia 0.966
Ireland 0.960

What is UK doing being 21st!? Behind Greece and Spain??

Mind you, the top 33 all have indexes 0.9 and above, so, should I really be surprised?? Or should I move to Iceland, immediately??

The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.

The second thing I'd pay attention to is internal variability. The countries near the top of the list have far more homogeneous populations than the UK or the US. It's much easier to satisfy the needs of a homogeneous population than the needs of a more diverse population. I suspect if you take out the lowest 2% of schools and PCT regions, the UK would shoot up that list. If you're not in one of those areas, then you're probably doing much better.

The third issue would be tax. What is the average tax take in the relative countries. Generally, the lower the tax take, the higher the level of private contributions to 'human development' (ie private education and health). Where you have a mixed public and private system, you can usually spend money and receive superior services.

Finally, it's not clear how big a difference 0.025 makes on that index. My guess is the difference is actually trivial.

The index itself is pretty meaningless without context. I'd expect this sort of thing to be used by the Daily Mail: it's just their sort of nonsense. The slightest glimmer of intelligent thought renders the point moot.

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Originally Posted by geoff332

The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.
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The index itself is pretty meaningless without context. I'd expect this sort of thing to be used by the Daily Mail: it's just their sort of nonsense. The slightest glimmer of intelligent thought renders the point moot.

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Lots of good points .... and yes, I think that you're probably mostly right!!

Especially about the homogeniety of populations, which must be worth a few points!!!

And if I were a tabloid, I'd certainly use the stats to bash some political group!!! :na:

Damn stats! [I still find the numbers interesting ..... even if they don't really mean much!]

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Originally Posted by Magic Hans

What is UK doing being 21st!? Behind Greece and Spain??

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:confused: Greece and Spain are not third world country's MH. In fact, IMO, Greek and Spanish folk have a significantly better quality of life and their diets and eating habits are a million times better than ours. Whilst kids in the UK are wolfing down chicken nuggets and chips in front of the telly, the Spanish and Greek kids are running around in the sunshine all day and eating healthy home cooked foods, usually the only fat in their diet is olive oil.

Ok, Ok, I'm generalising, but you get my point and I did used to live in Greece, so clearly I'm an authority on the subject. :wink: :na: :D

I'm surprised that the US is so far above the UK :eek: I do like Norway, i'd consider moving there - although they do speak funny :)

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Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

I'm surprised that the US is so far above the UK :eek: I do like Norway, i'd consider moving there - although they do speak funny :)

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I wonder how far down Scotland would be??? :stirring:

And how far up England would be??? :stirring: :stirring:

And how far down London would be !!!!!! :na:









Not that I'm being infantile at all!!!!! lol

well done - you got all 3 witches in - but there should only be the one cauldron ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geoff332

The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.

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I assume you have no idea what variables they used ?

Education,Health care etc seem fairly sound to me and not arbitrary.

These lists have been used for decades and seem to be fairly reflective

Are they 100% accurate of course not , do they tell you whats going on , of course they do.

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Originally Posted by stewart38

These lists have been used for decades and seem to be fairly reflective

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How do you know this ? Wishful thinking ? :)

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Originally Posted by stewart38

do they tell you whats going on , of course they do.

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No they don't. They're statistics and statistics only tell you what the author/presenter wants you to think.

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Originally Posted by Gav

No they don't. They're statistics and statistics only tell you what the author/presenter wants you to think.

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Don't they??

Looking at the world map, it seems that:

a) Europe, North America, Australia and Japan plus a couple of little far Eastern countries are very well developed

b) Russia, the most of the rest of the Americas, a couple of middle East countries, China .... are a little less developed

c) India, Pakistan, some of Indonesia, North Africa, some of Africa, including South Africa ... are less developed again (medium, say)

d) The rest of Africa, and a couple of other small countries (one in the Carribean, and somewhere in South Indonesia, are lowly developed.

Kind of fits in with what I might have imagined.

And makes a good picture!!

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Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

How do you know this ? Wishful thinking ? :)

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No when I did my Degree in Geography and Economics back in the 80s,we had these 'lists' to show us how bad the Third World was .

In fact we were told of a how a poor guy called Zebo a half blind african orphan had to ride 7 miles a day to school with only 1 leg on a bicycle with a buckled wheel and no breaks.

We are better off in the UK surely ??

Anyway we were asked for a small donation of £2 and the sponsor would send on the Beta Max video as apparently it was *** hilarious to watch.:sad: