Singapore topples Hong Kong in human development: UN

Find out how it got top spot.

UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) is one of the most popular measures of development, churning year after year of data revealing how countries are faring in terms of human-centered development.

This year Singapore ranked 9th globally, making it the most developed country in Asia as Hong Kong and South Korea tied at 15th. Japan, meanwhile, followed close by at 17th.

Singapore’s high GDP per capita of US$72,731 pulled the country up the ranks, the number a far cry from Hong Kong’s US$52,833.

The HDI is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.

Here’s more from the HDI:

The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The goalpost for minimum income is $100 (PPP) and the maximum is $75,000 (PPP). The minimum value for GNI per capita, set at $100, is justified by the considerable amount of unmeasured subsistence and nonmarket production in economies close to the minimum that is not captured in the official data. The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. Refer to Technical notes for more details.

The HDI does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc. The HDRO offers the other composite indices as broader proxy on some of the key issues of human development, inequality, gender disparity and human poverty.