Situation With Wellbeing In India
India has been ranked as the 130th on the Human Development Index (HDI) among 189 countries. This has been measured using a range of indicators including education and life expectancy.
India has a relatively low level of human well-being, but have increased over the years, which may be measured using education. According to The World Bank, India’s completion rates of primary school have increased from 71.78% in the year 2000 to 94.48% in 2017. Various organisations, such as The World Bank, have aided and assisted India’s education. However, for women’s education, wellbeing is still poor overall as statistics show that the gender rate for female students quitting school during adolescence is 63.5% (Women’s Forum, 2018). This is due to them being forced to leave because of a lack of education from family regarding women’s health and forced to take up work at home or to support the family. The lack of attendance in school for girls in India is a result of a lack of facilities, specifically toilets, which is raised to privacy concerns. There is also concern over the safety of girls as it is not rare for them to get harassed on the way to or from school. Thus, although India’s education rates have been expanding over the years resulting in increased wellbeing, many girls lack in hygiene and sanitation awareness which may limit their ability to go to school, which results in negative educational outcomes for women in particular.
India’s life expectancy rates have improved over the past 17 years as the population grew from 62.582 expected years since birth in 2000 and is now an average of 68.803 years in 2017 (World Bank, 2019). This change is because of various things including, the organisation UNICEF, who have been committed to helping against child mortality. According to the organisation, out of every 1000 newborn children in India, 66 die before reaching the age of five. They have helped people of India fight against infectious diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, tuberculosis and malaria, which have taken many children’s lives but have been successful in many states, due to simple precautions such as improved hygiene, clean water, vaccinations and medication. India’s Human Development Index (HDI) is not as high as other developed nations such as Australia, Germany and the US. However, it is higher than the poorest countries in Africa. Hence, through increased support from governments, Indian people have generally improved their level of health.
Conclusively, India has improved their level of human well-being over the past 17 years on the Human Development Index (HDI), which have been measured utilising a variety of indicators such as education and life expectancy.
