MODELING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX USING DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS

MODELING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX USING DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS By Iwuagwu, Chukwuma E. Nwosu, Moses Obinna

Department of Statistics

Abia State Polytechnic, Aba

Abstract

The basic objective of human development is to create an

enabling environment for people to live long, healthy and

creative lives and it is composite statistic of the life

expectancy, education income per capita indicators which

are used to rank countries into tiers of human

development. The paper determined the critical variables

that discriminate between High and Low human

development indexes. The data was collected through

secondary source from United Nation Development

Programme (UNDP) 2017. Thirteen variables (indicators)

were selected from thirty four countries classified high

and low human development. The data was analyzed with

discriminant analysis using the stepwise discriminant

function and location model. The significance of the

developed model was tested and the developed model for

high and low human development countries is given by

Y= 0.783x1 + 0.490x2

The study revealed that out of the thirteen indicators

considered to be critical, only two were most important

discriminatory variables.

Key words: Human Development Index, Location model,

Stepwise Discriminant Function, and Indicators.

1.1 Introduction

Human development has achieved almost universal recognition as the most effective process of enabling the individuals to live their lives in the manner they value, through enrichment of the opportunities and increasing their capacities to use the basic human rights. The basic objective of human development is to create an enabling environment for people to live long, healthy and creative lives.

Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of the life expectancy, education and income per capita indicators which are used to rank countries into tiers of human development. For a country to attend High Human Development depends on successful development and implementation of the necessary variables as enumerated by United Nation Development Programme (UNDP).

Human development index is complex, usually requiring simultaneous attention to a wide variety of human, budgetary and technical variables. However the contributions of these variables (indicators) still remain statistically insignificant to the growth of nation’s human development index (HDI).

AsPoly Journal of Sciences, Engineering and Environmental Studies