DEPRIVATION INDEX FOR HUMAN CAPITAL - KERALA

Mithun S Anand RP/1110

HUMAN DEPRIVATION INDEX

The Human Deprivation Index is a summary measure of human development. It measures the average achievements in three basic dimensions of human development. As per UNDP, these dimensions are as follows: A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth. Knowledge as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-third weights) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (with one third weight). A decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita.

Poverty has many dimensions they are, low income, poor health, lack of education, inadequate housing, unemployment, and social exclusion. Analysing the various dimensions of poverty is getting importance because it gives most clear picture about severity of poverty and also various factors such as low income, poor health and illiteracy interact with each other and prevent the poor from escaping from poverty. A change in the definition of the welfare indicator that results in a change in the ranking in the population will result in a different set of people being defined as poor, even if the poverty line remains the same. Yes this aspect often receives less attention from the analyst despite the fact that the purpose of most poverty analysis is to identify the characteristics of the poor. Assessing the poverty, with the help of income indicator is not the exclusive paradigm for poverty assessment and non-monetary components of poverty are also useful in assessing poverty. Most of the poverty estimates do not take into account of the non-market access to public services, such as health and education. To avoid this and to quantify the poverty, poverty estimates must take into consideration of social indicates such as health and education etc. Human deprivation index is a composite index based on the income, health and educational deprivations. For the analysis human deprivation index gives equal weightage for these three deprivations. There is lot of indicators for measuring these deprivations. For example, per capita income, percentage of population living below poverty line, unemployment, anaemia among children and mother, under-nourished children, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, birth rate, death rate, immusation achievement, availability of health facilities, illiteracy, drop-out, student-teacher ratio, availability of educational facilities etc. But among these, very prominent, sensitive and effective indicators are selected for human deprivation index construction.

METHODOLOGY
The methodology for computing the Human Development Index here is broadly same as that of UNDP method. In this analysis, Income deprivation is measured by population living below poverty line and per capita income, health deprivation is measured by infant mortality rate and educational deprivation is measured by illiteracy rate. The data used for the analysis are of 2001 year due to the non-availability of latest figures. Based on the poverty line (percentage population living below the poverty line), per capita income (Real per capita Income (PPP$)), infant mortality rate (Number of infants dying under one year of age in a year per 1000 live births of the same year) and illiteracy rate (100- literacy rate), District-wise Human Deprivation Index for Kerala state is constructed for the year 2001. These four indicators are given equal weightage for constructing Human Deprivation Index of Kerala Districts. After constructing Human Deprivation Index, the Districts are ranked according to their derivational index points. According to the rank, the number one district is first in human deprivation and can be said as worst in human development. The various steps involved in the process can be explained as; 1. First range equalization is conducted on each variable across all states this requires the subtraction of the minimum value from the value for each state and dividing the resultant with the difference of the maximum and minimum values. Range equalization ensures that all variables lie between 0 and 1. 2. Each of the new range equalized variables is then aggregated with others using equal weights to create an index for each of the areas under consideration. 3. Next the indices of each of the four areas are aggregated to obtain a composite index using equal weights. Table below shows the various indicators and the HDI for various districts within Kerala.
Indicator 1 States Indicator 2 Indicator 3 Indicator 4 Indicator 1 Indicator 2 Indicator 3 Indicator 4 HDI 1.85 1.51 0.94 1.57 0.54 1.58 0.83 1.24 2.66 2.09 1.61 3.05 2.04 2.15 Rank 9 5 3 6 1 7 2 4 13 11 8 14 10 12

Percentage of Real per capita Literacy Rate Infant Mortality familieas below Income (PPP$) - (%) - (Inverse Rate (per 1000 Poverty Income Education Health poverty line (Inverse Value) Value) births) Index Index Index Index Thiruvananthapuram 43.96 3,102 89.36 11 0.77 0.31 0.56 0.21 Kollam 41.45 2,885 91.49 8 0.70 0.43 0.38 0.00 Pathanamthitta 33.78 2,969 95.09 8 0.49 0.38 0.07 0.00 Alappuzha 52.5 2,989 93.66 8 1.00 0.37 0.19 0.00 Kottayam 17.9 3,286 95.9 12 0.05 0.20 0.00 0.29 Idukki 16.07 3,484 88.58 20 0.00 0.09 0.63 0.86 Ernakulam 30.68 3,646 93.42 11 0.40 0.00 0.21 0.21 Thrissur 37.21 3,117 92.56 9 0.58 0.30 0.29 0.07 Palakkad 45.25 2,513 84.31 11 0.80 0.64 1.00 0.21 Malappuram 27.55 1,881 88.61 10 0.32 1.00 0.63 0.14 Kozhikode 37.07 2,858 92.45 12 0.58 0.45 0.30 0.29 Wayanad 42.8 2,909 85.52 22 0.73 0.42 0.90 1.00 Kannur 51.07 2,719 92.8 12 0.96 0.53 0.27 0.29 Kasaragod 37.59 2,777 85.17 10 0.59 0.49 0.93 0.14

Observations
The analysis shows that Keralas human deprivation for different states are not very severe. As Kerala is the top most state in India in Human deprivation Index, a study within the state shows which all districts are the least deprived within the state. A notable observation from the analysis is that northern part of the state (Kasaragod, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malapuram and Palakkad) shows a high depreviation level whereas its the least in the central Kerala region (Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kottayam, Idukki, Patanamthitta and Alapuzha). Wayanad district shows the highest depreviation index district mainly because of its high infant mortality rate and most of the district is covered by forest and because of this 42 % of the people are BPL. In North Kerala literacy level and per capita income is low as compared to rest of Kerala because of the population density. Kottayam district shows the least deprived district of the state because of its high literacy rate, High percapita income and less BPL families.

Bibliography
1. M. Sivakumar, A. Sarvalingam (2010). Human Deprivation Index: A measure of Multidimensional Poverty. 2. B. Debroy, L Bhandari, Saiyar, A Gulati (2012). Economic freedom ranking for the states of India, 2012 3. Human Development Report, 2005 Kerala Government