Annual HDI 1990–2023 · UNDP (via Our World in Data)
The Human Development Index combines three dimensions into a single number between 0 and 1: health (life expectancy at birth), education (mean and expected years of schooling) and standard of living (gross national income per capita at purchasing power parity). It was designed in 1990 by the UNDP precisely to challenge GDP as the sole measure of development.
Annual values from the United Nations Development Programme, 1990 to 2023, distributed by Our World in Data. The UNDP revises the whole series retroactively with each edition: the value for a given past year can differ from one report to the next, so figures should always be compared within a single edition.
Seven bands, from under 0.500 to 0.940 and above. Beware the compression effect: the index is capped at 1, so the leading countries are separated by a few thousandths and their rank shifts on differences that carry no meaning. It is the class, not the exact rank, that carries information.
The world HDI fell for two consecutive years, in 2020 and 2021 — the first decline since the index was created — under the combined effect of the pandemic and armed conflict. The UNDP also publishes an inequality-adjusted HDI, systematically lower: the gap between the two measures exactly what the national average conceals.