Yashchenko A.A., Lisicharova G.O., Tsvetayeva O.V.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University

GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HDI AS A SYNTHETIC INDICATOR DETERMINATION OF THE LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRIES

The relevance of this topic is that the HDI (Human development index) nowadays is of wide use in modern geographical studies. As well as this option is a synthetic indicator, it is necessary to reveal that it affects the value of the HDI for a better understanding of its nature.

Human development index is the index for the comparative assessment of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy and other indicators of the country. The index was developed in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq. This option is a synthetic indicator, which includes a significant number of indicators.

The dynamics of HDI for countries Group of Seven (G-7), Group of Twenty (G-20), the country’s new industrialization, oil and poorest countries in the world was analyzed. The annual reports of the UN human development report were the material for the study.

We consider the dynamics of the HDI for Group of Seven and for poorest countries in the world, as the examples of the average trend.

Countries of Group of Seven have very high HDI value which tends to 1. Also HDI value of these countries are very close in its value, so these countries are similar in terms of socio-economic development. HDI of these countries were affected by the global financial crisis, and after 2009 it decreased.

HDI of the poorest countries is highly variable. This demonstrates the social and economic instability.

The correlation analysis was conducted to find the relationship between the HDI from selected four parameters. The coefficient of pair correlation was calculated between:

– Education index and the HDI;

– Expected Years of Schooling and the HDI;

– Life expectancy at birth and the HDI;

– GDP per capita and the HDI.

The vast majority of the HDI values depends on Life expectancy at birth. So it is a key indicator of changes in the value of the HDI. Countries, which HDI depends on this parameter were presented in all study groups.

HDI depends less on the expected duration of expected years of schooling. HDI depends from this indicator only in five countries.

It should also be noted that the level of human development is not overly dependent on the economic indicator – GDP per capita. It is in third place out of four possible according to the frequency of maximum impact.

Thus we conclude that the level of human development is dependent from the social factors. Economic indicator affects countries with low levels of development.