- HDI is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of human development, standards of living or Quality of life, and distinguish countries into groups of"very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development"
-Ranks countries according to:
-adult literacy
-life expectancy
-per capita GDP
-In the late 1990’s more than 20 countries had a life expectancy at birth under 50
-200 richest people had more wealth than 41% of the World’s population combined
Summary
Standard of living refers to the level of wealth, happiness, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area.The Human Development Index is used as a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living for countries worldwide. Developing countries are generally low on the HDI rating, because of the issues of AIDS, poverty, child labour, starvations and an accumulation of many other problems. Life expectancy is low as well as adult literacy because most children don't go to school. An HDI below 0.5 is considered to represent "low development". All 22 countries in the Low HDI rank are located in Africa.