Human Development Index (HDI)

undp_hdr.hdi · UNDP — Human Development Report · hdi

Definition

Geometric mean of three dimensions: a long and healthy life (life expectancy), knowledge (expected and mean years of schooling) and standard of living (log of gross national income per capita in PPP). Ranges from 0 to 1. The whole series is recomputed with each report edition, so values from different editions are not comparable.

Formula: HDI = (I_health · I_education · I_income)^(1/3), each index normalized between fixed minimum and maximum.
Unit: index (0 to 1)
License: CC-BY-3.0-IGO

This visualization is descriptive and does not show that a government caused the change. See the methodology.

Human Development Index (HDI)

Brazil
Argentina
Chile
Colombia
Mexico

index (0 to 1). Background bands: Brazil's presidents, not those of the chart's other geographies. Years with data: all series: 1990–2023.

Human Development Index (HDI): Source: UNDP — Human Development Report · Source version: HDR 2025 · Collected on: 2026-10-26 · License: CC-BY-3.0-IGO · Paper behind the metric: Ravallion, M
Download data (CSV) · View the code: collection code · chart.ts

View the data as a table

Year	Brazil	Argentina	Chile	Colombia	Mexico
1990	0.641	0.733	0.718	0.623	0.668
1991	0.645	0.739	0.723	0.630	0.670
1992	0.648	0.743	0.730	0.639	0.672
1993	0.654	0.748	0.725	0.645	0.675
1994	0.659	0.753	0.730	0.650	0.680
1995	0.666	0.754	0.739	0.655	0.680
1996	0.671	0.760	0.745	0.663	0.687
1997	0.676	0.768	0.752	0.670	0.694
1998	0.680	0.772	0.759	0.676	0.701
1999	0.684	0.783	0.766	0.673	0.706
2000	0.690	0.789	0.771	0.679	0.712
2001	0.694	0.795	0.778	0.681	0.715
2002	0.700	0.795	0.784	0.684	0.722
2003	0.705	0.804	0.789	0.691	0.728
2004	0.712	0.808	0.797	0.699	0.732
2005	0.718	0.812	0.804	0.711	0.736
2006	0.725	0.822	0.804	0.712	0.745
2007	0.732	0.825	0.812	0.724	0.747
2008	0.739	0.833	0.820	0.731	0.750
2009	0.742	0.835	0.819	0.736	0.749
2010	0.748	0.844	0.823	0.741	0.751
2011	0.753	0.852	0.823	0.747	0.757
2012	0.758	0.850	0.832	0.748	0.764
2013	0.762	0.852	0.845	0.760	0.765
2014	0.765	0.855	0.849	0.763	0.769
2015	0.764	0.859	0.855	0.767	0.773
2016	0.765	0.857	0.859	0.772	0.778
2017	0.770	0.861	0.862	0.774	0.781
2018	0.774	0.861	0.866	0.775	0.785
2019	0.776	0.861	0.867	0.777	0.788
2020	0.770	0.851	0.856	0.764	0.763
2021	0.768	0.847	0.865	0.762	0.761
2022	0.780	0.858	0.869	0.782	0.783
2023	0.786	0.865	0.878	0.788	0.789

† series break

Criticisms of the metric

Implicit weights across dimensions impose hard-to-justify tradeoffs: the implicit value of an extra year of life varies enormously between rich and poor countries (Ravallion, 2012).
Uses national averages and ignores inequality within the country (see the inequality-adjusted HDI).
Moves slowly year to year; some components are interpolated or projected.

References

Ravallion, M. (2012). Troubling tradeoffs in the Human Development Index. Journal of Development Economics, 99(2), 201–209. doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2012.01.003
UNDP. Human Development Report 2025 — Technical notes. https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/documentation-and-downloads

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