UN Human Development Index

The UN publishes an annual report on human development each year, which produces a composite score for almost all nations in the world, based on indicators like per capita income, life expectancy, literacy, higher education, diffusion of technology, patents generated, etc. 

The world map below displays the approximate development level of the world's nations, with the greener nations being more developed, and the redder nations being less developed (source : Wikipedia). 

Wealth and poverty can be measured in both relative and absolute terms.  In absolute terms, the progress in human development that has been made since 1975 is stunning.  See the table of Human Development Index progress here. 

In 1975, only about 20 nations had acheived a score of 0.800 or greater (the level that corresponds to being a 'developed' country).  By 2003, approximately 57 countries have achieved 'developed' status.

This can be linked entirely to the diffusion of technology, spread of globalization, and the emergence of the United States as the dominant economic model in the world, creating win-win trade arrangements with many other countries.

Comments

[Pyramus]

Interesting read. So there's a possibility that in a few years, most countries will have a developed status, even the third world ones?

[Elliptical reviews]

No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.

[Geoman]

In 2019, 59 counties are > 0.800, so not much improvement at the top.

The big change has been at the bottom, where only 38 countries fall in the low HDI group (< 0.500). Just eight years ago, in 2010, 49 countries were in the bottom group. This is a monumental change.

No country is currently below 0.354. Only three countries are below 0.400. 11 countries were below 0.400 in 2006. So a big move up from the bottom.

And an impressively large number of countries are just below 0.800. 30 countries are > 0.750.

It seems hard to reach the tippy top of the HDI development index, but that doesn't matter much since improvement at the bottom has been so steady.

The competitive map to the one above - most of south America is green. Africa doesn't show much improvement, but the middle east sure does. Russia and China are now green.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/data

[Kartik Gada]

Geoman,

One thing they did was change the scale, so what was 0.800 in 2006 is a lower number today. They also split the top category in to 'Very high' and 'high'. Under the new scale, no country was above 0.870 in 1990, but many are now.

While it is hard to estimate exactly, the level that had 57 above it in 2006 has about 110 countries above it now. In the UN graphic you have linked, check out individual developing countries, and see the continuous rise from 2006. One can play around with that chart for a long time to compare various countries.

Only the very bottom (the bottom 25 countries or so, almost all in Africa) have not been improving.

This is one of the good metrics where, whether intentional or not, they don't keep revising the threshold of poverty upward. Hence, many countries have pulled themselves out of 'Low' HD. It is easy to see, in that interactive graphic, how a developing country in 2017 has the same score as a developed country in 1990.

Thanks for checking back on all these old datapoints.