Measuring the future: The youth HDI in Spain

Abstract

The paper provides three key contributions to examine how youth development can be used to approach the future: first, it introduces a new age-disaggregated human development indicator focused on the youth, named ‘Youth HDI’. It centres on educational, living standard and health issues. Secondly, it shows how partial ranking analysis (posets) can be used to unfold incomparabilities in ordering regions, overcoming traditional limitations associated with the use of composite indicators. Finally, it employs Phillips and Sul (2009) convergence test and clustering algorithms to assess the evolution of the Youth HDI for different regions. These contributions are quintessentially methodological about evidence for 'perspective of futures'. This illustration shows how youth’s vulnerability and marginalisation are not an exclusivity of developing countries. It unlocks the debate about the consequences of current youth’s human development to sustainability and how this kind of disaggregated indicator is essential for fulfilling 2030 Agenda’s transformative promise of “leaving no one behind”