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UN: Japan 10th Place and Falling in World Human Development Index

Written By: guyjin on October 19, 2009 10 Comments

The latest issue of the annual UN Human Development Index (HDI) from the UN Development Program shows Japan in 10th place in the world. This places it 3 places above the US, but 8 spots below my home country of Australia (see the top 15 ranked countries below). The Japan Times highlighted this report in an editorial today, which raises a number of interesting points, and documents how Japan’s place amongst the developed nations of the world has been falling over the last 20 years.

The HDI is a measure of three main factors, health, knowledge and standard of living. It is an attempt by the UN to put a measure on the relative development of different nations. Over the last 30 years or so, Japan’s development has been seen to virtually stagnate, with only a negligible rise in its Index, and a fall of 5 spots from 5th in 1980 and 1990, to 10th today. Part of this could be said to be due to other countries overtaking Japan as well, but some of the areas in which Japan is lagging show some very important issues that need to be tackled.

In terms of health, the first of the areas that are measured by the HDI, Japan does relatively well, due in large part to its high life expectancy. But as I’ve discussed here before (see Japanese Health Care: No Utopia), there are a number of issues in health care that are only going to get worse as the population grows older and as the less healthy lifestyles of the last 20 years or so begin to catch up with the numbers… The life expectancy is often touted as a result of Japan’s health system, but I am skeptical about this. I tend to think that it is more due to the lifestyle that Japanese people have lived for most of the last century, a lifestyle that is changing and becoming less and less healthy both in terms of diet and physical labor.

While the HDI rates Japan very highly for its health care, it rates only 42nd in the world in terms of education. This is a surprising result again, due to the image that Japan has had for decades of being highly educated, having a very high literacy rate, and developing so many high tech industries. Apparently one area in which the education ranking takes a hit is in the gross enrollment ratio, which is a measure of how many people enroll in primary, secondary and tertiary education, and how many could be enrolled. In Japan, this figure stands at 86.6%, which suggests that a lot more work can be done, particularly in terms of secondary and tertiary education, to encourage more students to attend, and to make enrollment easier.

The Hatoyama government have already announced their plan to make high school cheaper, and this is a positive step. Japan spends less of its government expenditure on education (9.5%) than most other developed countries, although this doesn’t necessarily mean that much less is spent. The burden on families is very high compared with most other countries, and this can result on less incentive to continue through schooling. I am not someone that believes that more money will solve every problem, and nor do I usually like to see government get involved where it doesn’t have to. But I do see education as a vital right of all young people, and I believe that in a country such as Japan there shouldn’t be a single person that is unable to complete high school because it is too expensive. Something certainly has to be done in this regard, and in making tertiary education more accessible as well.

The final area that is measured by the HDI is the standard of living. Here Japan ranks 26th among all nations, and this is much lower than it should be given the GDP. Since I have come to Japan, there is one question which I have asked over and over again (and which I am thinking of doing a separate series about in the coming weeks). That question is: “Where is the Money?” Coming from Australia, I enjoyed a great standard of living, including great health care, infrastructure, education etc. But when you realize that Japan taxes its citizens more, is wealthier, and has a higher per capita GDP, you really have to wonder sometimes where all the money has gone…

One area that Japan lags behind the rest of the world in terms of standard of living is with gender. According to the HDI report, women still only earn 45% of what men do. This can be a misleading statistic, because it doesn’t seem to be based on ‘like for like work’, but is simply a snap shot of male income overall versus female income overall. Still, in terms of gender, the HDI when taken together with a Global Gender Gap analysis in 2008 ranks Japan 108th out of 155 countries in terms of the achievements of men and women. It is unclear also exactly what this means, but there is ample evidence that women in Japan are still struggling to be as widely represented in government and the higher reaches of business as they are in many other places around the world. Again, many of these measures are misleading, because a lot of times men and women do have different goals. But I think such a stark difference between Japan and other nations shows that opportunities for women are still greatly lacking in this country, and that is a problem.

Overall, while Japan still sits in a very high position in terms of its Human Development Index, there are a number of issues that threaten to hold them back over the coming decades unless there is a change. Educational opportunities need to be enhanced, more opportunities for women need to be found (and higher paying opportunities), and health care needs to be strengthened so that it will be able to tackle the rising generations that are not as healthy as those that have gone by. Its not all bad news though, because Japan is 10th in the world, and is still considered ahead of such countries as the US (13th), the UK (21st), Germany (22nd), South Korea (26th), and many others.

I should say that I am often suspicious of rankings such as these, because there will always be decisions made about what kind of things should be measured, and what areas should be placed in the index, and how they should be weighted etc. And these decisions will always be colored by an agenda of some form or another. Even when the intentions are good, there should always be a healthy amount of skepticism about the overall rankings. Still, some of the details that make up the ranking (as discussed above) are very interesting, and while the specific ranking of a country can probably be misleading, it can be useful to monitor movements up and down the index, to determine whether countries are doing better or worse against themselves. Its also always good for bragging rights when your home country is near the top of the list….

Top 15 Countries in HDI:

1. Norway

2. Australia

3. Iceland

4. Canada

5. Ireland

6. Netherlands

7. Sweden

8. France

9. Switzerland

10. Japan

11. Luxembourg