CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Transcription

1 CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1.1 Introduction: Over the decades, developmental economists have emphasized a number of alternative approaches as the major focus of development. These approaches may be broadly categorised as growth oriented approach, basic need approach, welfare approach, human capital formation approach and human development approach. Though the thrusts of all these approaches are to improve the quality of life, they differ in their priority. During 1950 s and 1960 s, the thrust of development was on higher economic growth through industrialization. Thus the GNP growth rate was emphasized as the indicator of development. But the development experience of LDCs in 1950s and 1960s brought about a change in the concept of development. In many developing countries, in spite of rapid growth of income, physical well being has tended to flow unevenly. It was realised that GNP growth (indicator of development) is a necessity, but not a sufficient condition for development. The emphasis was then shifted to human welfare. Welfare approach, measure the economic development from the point of view of economic welfare. It defines economic development as a process where the consumption of goods and services of an individual increases. It was not satisfactory to many developmental economists. Human welfare approach looks at human beings as men beneficiaries of the development process than as participants in it. They emphasize distributive policies rather than productive structure. Besides, it was highly difficult to measure the loss or gain in human welfare. The basic need approach usually concentrates on the bundle of goods and services that deprive population need. These are mainly food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and water. It focuses on the 1

2 provision of these goods and services rather than on the issues of human choices. It was not satisfactory and did not have wider acceptance. In later years, the theories of human capital formation and human resources development focus on the development of human capital as the main thrust of development. It views human being primarily as a mean rather than as an end. They are concerned only with supply side with human beings as instruments for furthering commodity production. But human beings are also the ultimate end and beneficiaries of this process. Thus, the concept of human capital formation captures only one side of human development, not the whole. In 1990s, the concept of human development has emerged as the ultimate goal of development. Human development brings together the production and distribution of commodities and expansion and use of human capabilities. Human development is concerned not only with basic need satisfaction but also with human development as a participatory and dynamic process. It applies equally to less developed and highly developed countries. The United Nation had declared the 1990s as the decade for human development. The UN committee for Development Planning Summit year emphasized that people should be placed firmly in the centre of development. Any development strategy for the 1990s will combine a number of objectives; such as, accelerating economic growth, reducing absolute poverty and preventing further deterioration in physical environment Economic growth and human development: Economic growth is essential for human development but there is no automatic link between economic growth and human progress (HDR 1990). One of the most pertinent policy issue is the 2

3 exact process through which growth translates or fails to translate into human development under different developmental conditions. The UNDP defines human development as the process of enlarging people s choices. The most critical of these choices are to live a long healthy life, to be educated and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living. Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human right and personal self respect. The major elements of human development are productivity, equity, sustainability and empowerment. Productivity focuses on participation of people fully in the process of income generation while equity focuses on access to equal opportunities without any discrimination with respect to sex, caste etc. The sustainability emphasizes on the opportunities for the present without compromising that of the future generation. The empowerment emphasized that development must be by people not only for them. People must participate fully in decision-making process that shapes their lives. It also stated that the economic growth is the means and human development is the end. Economic growth deals with expanding GNP rather than enhancing the quality of human lives as where human development brings together the production and distribution of commodities and the expansion and use of human capabilities. Human development treats a human being as an input in the production process, a means rather than an end. Human Development has two sides: 1. Formation of human capabilities such as improved health, knowledge and skill 2. Use people to make their acquired capabilities for productive purpose Balance between the two sides is essential While human resources development focus only on supply side, the human development focus both on supply and demand side. 3

4 The central conclusions of first human development report were; 1. The link between economic growth and human progress is not automatic: GNP growth accompanied by reasonable equitable distribution of income is generally the effective path to sustain human development. If the distribution of income is unequal and if the social expenditure is low or distributed unevenly, human development may not improve much despite GNP growth. 2. A significant reduction in population growth rate is absolutely essential for a visible improvement in human development levels: there is an urgent need to strengthen programmes of family planning, female literacy, fertility reduction and maternal and child health care. 3. Average progress in human development conceals large disparities within the regions of a country. The levels and changes in human development are influenced by many factors ranging from macro economic to micro factors through intermediate variables like government expenditure and government policies and programmes Policies for Human Development: Many factors influence the level and changes in human development, ranging from aspects of macro economy-which in turn is affected by developments in the international economy- to micro factors operating in individual households. Mesa policies cover the whole range of fiscal policies including those directly affect the distribution of income but not confined to the social expenditure. The main instruments of government for directly affecting human development levels are: 1.Across the broad mesa policies: Those for the provision of public goods and services in a way do not discriminate among different social groups or regions, such as universal primary education programme and nationwide immunization programmes. 4

5 2. Targeted mesa policies: Those for the provision of public goods and services to all members, particularly target group in society. 1.2.Review of Literature: The concept of human development got wide acceptance among academicians, researchers, planners and policy makers. The concept is equally accepted among developing and developed countries. The UNDP publishes Human development report annually since The report ranks countries on the basis of composite index, popularly known as human development index for most of the countries in the world. It also computes other indices such as Human Poverty Index, Gender Development Index, Human Poverty Index and Technology Advancement Index for most of the countries in the world. These indices have become so popular that many countries have computed such indices for different regions/territories of their country. Besides the annual publication of Human Development Report, the South Asian Human Development Report is also published. In India, the Planning Commission brings out the National Human Development Report for the country. In this report the states had been ranked on the basis of human development index and also on human poverty index. Besides, many individuals and organisation had attempted to assess the state of human development in the country using the composite index. The Human development Report for South India focus the state of human development among the south Indian states. Among the various states, the state of Madhya Pradesh is the first to bring out the human development report for the state followed by Karnataka. The other states which had already published the human development report for their state are Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Some other 5

6 states are keep on preparing the report for their state. Most of the states had examined the inter district variation in the state of human development. With limited resources, it enables the state government to prioritise their efforts in programme formulations Need for the Study: From the above discussion it is clear that human development has emerged as the ultimate goal of development. In the Indian context, the decade of 1990s had seen many changes with respect to economic policies, health policies and technological development. With respect to economic reform, it may be noted that India was in the midst of acute economic crisis. The Government of India has introduced a number of measures to improve the economy. The economic reform had two broad objectives. One was the reorientation of the economy from static, centrally directed and highly controlled economy to a market friendly economy. Reduction in direct control and physical planning was expected to improve the efficiency of the economy. The second objective of the reform was macro-economic stabilisation. This was to be achieved by substantially reducing the fiscal deficits and other measures (Jalan Bimal, 2002). After the Cairo conference, India had adopted reproductive and child health approach in the country. The target free approach was given up and providing the reproductive and child health services has become the crux of the programme. In addition, the recent National Population Policy and National Health Policy have documented many targets to be achieved. The second generation reforms aimed at making the Indian economy a fast growing one with human face need to be assessed in its performance and shortcomings. In this context, this research attempts to assess the state of human development in India with respect to key areas such as economy, literacy and health. Further, it aims to assess the progress 6

7 and deprivation among the states of India. In addition to this, the state of development will be examined for the districts of India with the help of a composite index Objectives: The broad objective of this study is to assess the progress of the country in key areas of human development such as economy, literacy, health and demography. However the specific objectives are as follows 1. To examine the trends in human development for India and states using the human development index 2. To construct gender development index and human poverty index for major states of India and examine its validity in Indian context 3. To estimate the crude birth rate and Infant Mortality Rate using children ever born and children surviving data for the districts of India 4. To rank the districts of India for area-specific planning and programme interventions 1.5. Source of data: The data has been compiled from the following published sources 1. Census of India, 1991 and Economic survey, 1997, National Sample Survey 4. National Family and Health Survey (I and II) 5. Human Development Report 6. Sample Registration System 7

8 1.6 Methodology: The methodology used in the computation of HDI and HPI-1 is same as that of UNDP. The HDI is a summary measure of human development. It measures the average achievements accurately in three basic dimensions of human development. A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth. Knowledge as measured by adult literacy rate (with 2/3 weight) and the enrollment ratio (one third weight) A descent standard of living as measured by GDP per capita (PPP US$) To evaluate the dimension indices, the life expectancy, education and GDP indices, minimum and maximum values, are chosen. Life expectancy index: Upper limit: 85 years Lower limit: 25 years a) Life expectancy index: X i -25/X max - X min The life expectancy at birth is taken from SRS, latest available year is b) Educational index = 2/3 (adult literacy/100)+1/3(enrollment ratio/100) Adult literacy from Census 1991 and NSSO; where as enrolment ratio for children in 6-14 years age group are taken from NFHS I & II. 8

9 c) Income index: The income index is calculated using adjusted GDP per capita(ppp US$). Income is adjusted because achieving a respectable level of human development does not require unlimited income. Income index = Log X i log (100)/Log(40,000) log(100) The advantages of taking logarithms are that it reduces the weight age for higher value. The SDPPCI at current prices has been converted to prices for all states as well as for 1991; hence the data will be comparable. Then the GNPPCI of equivalent PPP$ was converted and same was converted for state level. d) HDI = 1/3 (Life expectancy Index +Educational Index +Income Index). While the HDI measures average achievements, the HPI 1 measures deprivations in the three basic dimension of human development captured in the HPI. a long and healthy life vulnerability to death at a relatively early age as measured by probability of not surviving to certain age. Knowledge exclusion from the world of reading and communication as measured by adult illiteracy rate. A decent standard of living- lack of access to over all economic provisions as measured by percentage of population not using improved water sources and the percentage of children under five who are underweight. 9

10 The indicators used to measure deprivation are already normalized between 0 and 100 (because they are expressed as percentage). There is no need to create dimension indices as for HDI. HPI = {1/3 (P 1 α + P 2 α + P 3 α ) 1/α } Where P 1 is probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 (times 100) P 2 is adult Illiteracy rate P 3 is unweighted average of population not using improved water sources and underweight children under age 5. Here we have taken underweight of children at age 3. In case of safe drinking water, only households connected with tap and tube well are taken from NFHS. Where is α is 3 in calculating the HPI. The question arises Why α= 3 in calculating HPI. The value of α has an important impact on the value of HPI. If α = 1, HPI is the average of its dimension. As α increases towards infinity, the HPI will tend towards the value of dimension in which deprivation is greatest. For example if illiteracy has higher value it will get higher weightage. The HDI measures only the average national achievement, not how well it is distributed in a country. Disaggregating a country s HDI by region help policy makers to assess the difference in human development among regions. 10