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Thread: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

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    Registered User Magic Hans's Avatar
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    Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    I just caught sight of the Human Development Index on wiki, and had a look through.

    I'm assuming that this is a measure of how devloped a country is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wiki
    The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide
    Interesting positionings were:

    Ireland: 0.960 5th
    USA: 0.950 15th
    Spain: 0.949 16th
    Greece: 0.947 18th, ahead of Italy 0.945
    UK: 0.942 21st
    Germany: 0.940 23rd!! [so that's all ok then!!! lol]


    Top 5 are:

    Iceland 0.968
    Norway 0.968
    Canada 0.967
    Australia 0.966
    Ireland 0.960

    What is UK doing being 21st!? Behind Greece and Spain??

    Mind you, the top 33 all have indexes 0.9 and above, so, should I really be surprised?? Or should I move to Iceland, immediately??

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.

    The second thing I'd pay attention to is internal variability. The countries near the top of the list have far more homogeneous populations than the UK or the US. It's much easier to satisfy the needs of a homogeneous population than the needs of a more diverse population. I suspect if you take out the lowest 2% of schools and PCT regions, the UK would shoot up that list. If you're not in one of those areas, then you're probably doing much better.

    The third issue would be tax. What is the average tax take in the relative countries. Generally, the lower the tax take, the higher the level of private contributions to 'human development' (ie private education and health). Where you have a mixed public and private system, you can usually spend money and receive superior services.

    Finally, it's not clear how big a difference 0.025 makes on that index. My guess is the difference is actually trivial.

    The index itself is pretty meaningless without context. I'd expect this sort of thing to be used by the Daily Mail: it's just their sort of nonsense. The slightest glimmer of intelligent thought renders the point moot.

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    Registered User Magic Hans's Avatar
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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.
    ...
    ...
    The index itself is pretty meaningless without context. I'd expect this sort of thing to be used by the Daily Mail: it's just their sort of nonsense. The slightest glimmer of intelligent thought renders the point moot.
    Lots of good points .... and yes, I think that you're probably mostly right!!

    Especially about the homogeniety of populations, which must be worth a few points!!!

    And if I were a tabloid, I'd certainly use the stats to bash some political group!!!

    Damn stats! [I still find the numbers interesting ..... even if they don't really mean much!]
    Last edited by Magic Hans; 14th-September-2009 at 11:12 AM. Reason: Smelling correction

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Magic Hans View Post
    What is UK doing being 21st!? Behind Greece and Spain??
    Greece and Spain are not third world country's MH. In fact, IMO, Greek and Spanish folk have a significantly better quality of life and their diets and eating habits are a million times better than ours. Whilst kids in the UK are wolfing down chicken nuggets and chips in front of the telly, the Spanish and Greek kids are running around in the sunshine all day and eating healthy home cooked foods, usually the only fat in their diet is olive oil.

    Ok, Ok, I'm generalising, but you get my point and I did used to live in Greece, so clearly I'm an authority on the subject.

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    I'm surprised that the US is so far above the UK I do like Norway, i'd consider moving there - although they do speak funny

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    Registered User Magic Hans's Avatar
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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    I'm surprised that the US is so far above the UK I do like Norway, i'd consider moving there - although they do speak funny
    I wonder how far down Scotland would be???

    And how far up England would be???

    And how far down London would be !!!!!!









    Not that I'm being infantile at all!!!!! lol

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    well done - you got all 3 witches in - but there should only be the one cauldron

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    The first thing I would try and understand is what is the index measuring. My guess is it's picked a bunch of arbitrary variables - such as average school leaving age or percentage attending university and inferred the quality of education from that measure. Like any measure, it's going to be mostly arbitrary and not really tell you a great deal about what's going on.

    I assume you have no idea what variables they used ?

    Education,Health care etc seem fairly sound to me and not arbitrary.

    These lists have been used for decades and seem to be fairly reflective

    Are they 100% accurate of course not , do they tell you whats going on , of course they do.

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    These lists have been used for decades and seem to be fairly reflective
    How do you know this ? Wishful thinking ?

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    do they tell you whats going on , of course they do.
    No they don't. They're statistics and statistics only tell you what the author/presenter wants you to think.

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Gav View Post
    No they don't. They're statistics and statistics only tell you what the author/presenter wants you to think.
    Don't they??

    Looking at the world map, it seems that:

    a) Europe, North America, Australia and Japan plus a couple of little far Eastern countries are very well developed

    b) Russia, the most of the rest of the Americas, a couple of middle East countries, China .... are a little less developed

    c) India, Pakistan, some of Indonesia, North Africa, some of Africa, including South Africa ... are less developed again (medium, say)

    d) The rest of Africa, and a couple of other small countries (one in the Carribean, and somewhere in South Indonesia, are lowly developed.

    Kind of fits in with what I might have imagined.

    And makes a good picture!!

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    Re: Human Development: Where is the UK? Top 5? Top 10? Not even top 20!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    How do you know this ? Wishful thinking ?
    No when I did my Degree in Geography and Economics back in the 80s,we had these 'lists' to show us how bad the Third World was .

    In fact we were told of a how a poor guy called Zebo a half blind african orphan had to ride 7 miles a day to school with only 1 leg on a bicycle with a buckled wheel and no breaks.

    We are better off in the UK surely ??

    Anyway we were asked for a small donation of £2 and the sponsor would send on the Beta Max video as apparently it was *** hilarious to watch.

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