The Human Poverty Index (HPI) was an indication of the poverty of community in a country, developed by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

to complement the

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, Education Index, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income i ...

(HDI) and was first reported as part of the Human Development Report in 1997. It is developed by United Nations Development Program which also publishes indexes like HDI It was considered to better reflect the extent of deprivation in deprived countries compared to the HDI. In 2010, it was supplanted by the UN's

Multidimensional Poverty Index Multidimensional Poverty Indices use a range of indicators (monetary, health, education and others) to calculate a summary poverty figure for a given population, in which a larger figure indicates a higher level of poverty. This figure considers b ...

. The HPI concentrates on the deprivation in the three essential elements of human life already reflected in the HDI: longevity, knowledge and a decent

standard of living Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outsid ...

. The HPI is derived separately for

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

(HPI-1) and a group of select high-income

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

countries (HPI-2) to better reflect socio-economic differences and also the widely different measures of deprivation in the two groups.

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 =

\left frac \left(P_1^\alpha+P_2^\alpha+P_3^\alpha\right)\right

For selected high-income OECD countries (HPI-2)

The Human Development Reports website summarizes this as "A composite index measuring deprivations in the four basic dimensions captured in the human development index—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living—and also capturing

social exclusion Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...

." The formula for calculating it is: * HPI-2 =

\left frac \left(P_1^\alpha+P_2^\alpha+P_3^\alpha+P_4^\alpha\right)\right

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): The countries ranked in the top 22 by HPI that are not on this list are

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked, doubly landlocked Swiss Standard German, German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east ...

. Not all countries are included in this ranking because data are not always available. The ranks of many countries, especially those at the bottom, could drop considerably if the list included more countries. For information about the component values for countries other 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 US 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 due to the choice of the literacy test. * Long-term unemployment (12 months or more, % of labour force), 2005. Varies from 0.4% for the United States 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 The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

adjusted household disposable income (%), 1994–2002. Varies from 5.4% for Finland to 17% for the US.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20120115005625/http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/understanding/indices/hpi/
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME: Human Development Reports

Human Development Reports 2007/2008
{{Poverty Measurements and definitions of poverty Welfare economics International rankings * Social science indices

For developing countries (HPI-1)

For selected high-income OECD countries (HPI-2)

See also

References

External links