{"title":"Assessing Human Development in Nepal through Descriptive and Cluster Analysis: Progress and Disparities","authors":"Ishwari Prasad Banjade, Srijan Lal Shrestha","doi":"10.1007/s11482-024-10278-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Human Development Reports initiated by Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq in 1990 have been regularly published by United Nations Development Programme featuring the gender and human development assessment. Nepal has been publishing its Human Development Reports since 1998. According to the reports, Human Development Index (HDI) of Nepal was found increasing from 0.399 in 1990 to 0.602 in 2021 with a 50.88% improvement compared to 1990. Moreover, notable progress has been found in the area of gender and human development but significant disparities still persist among different castes, ethnicities and regions. We examined human development related indexes of Nepal focusing on gender, caste/ethnicity, regional, rural-urban disparities. We applied descriptive methods and cluster analysis for classification of districts of Nepal using published secondary data. The K-mean cluster analysis based upon averaged district level estimates for the period 1996–2011 with five clusters showed relatively optimum classification scheme with average HDIs ranging between 0.33 and 0.58, low intra-cluster variances (0.0001–0.0020) and a high Silhouette score (0.593). Considering average HDI data, only 3 districts were in medium HDI category (0.55 ≤ HDI < 0.70) and rest of the 74 districts were in low HDI category (HDI ≤ 0.55). Moreover, cluster analysis showed 4 districts with highest cluster centroid (0.58) that belong to medium HDI category. In conclusion, there exists urgent need to cope with human development related issues for formulating development policies and strategies in Nepal.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51483,"journal":{"name":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-024-10278-0","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Human Development Reports initiated by Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq in 1990 have been regularly published by United Nations Development Programme featuring the gender and human development assessment. Nepal has been publishing its Human Development Reports since 1998. According to the reports, Human Development Index (HDI) of Nepal was found increasing from 0.399 in 1990 to 0.602 in 2021 with a 50.88% improvement compared to 1990. Moreover, notable progress has been found in the area of gender and human development but significant disparities still persist among different castes, ethnicities and regions. We examined human development related indexes of Nepal focusing on gender, caste/ethnicity, regional, rural-urban disparities. We applied descriptive methods and cluster analysis for classification of districts of Nepal using published secondary data. The K-mean cluster analysis based upon averaged district level estimates for the period 1996–2011 with five clusters showed relatively optimum classification scheme with average HDIs ranging between 0.33 and 0.58, low intra-cluster variances (0.0001–0.0020) and a high Silhouette score (0.593). Considering average HDI data, only 3 districts were in medium HDI category (0.55 ≤ HDI < 0.70) and rest of the 74 districts were in low HDI category (HDI ≤ 0.55). Moreover, cluster analysis showed 4 districts with highest cluster centroid (0.58) that belong to medium HDI category. In conclusion, there exists urgent need to cope with human development related issues for formulating development policies and strategies in Nepal.
期刊介绍:
The aim of this journal is to publish conceptual, methodological and empirical papers dealing with quality-of-life studies in the applied areas of the natural and social sciences. As the official journal of the ISQOLS, it is designed to attract papers that have direct implications for, or impact on practical applications of research on the quality-of-life. We welcome papers crafted from interdisciplinary, inter-professional and international perspectives. This research should guide decision making in a variety of professions, industries, nonprofit, and government sectors, including healthcare, travel and tourism, marketing, corporate management, community planning, social work, public administration, and human resource management. The goal is to help decision makers apply performance measures and outcome assessment techniques based on concepts such as well-being, human satisfaction, human development, happiness, wellness and quality-of-life. The Editorial Review Board is divided into specific sections indicating the broad scope of practice covered by the journal. The section editors are distinguished scholars from many countries across the globe.