Macro Essay

Although both GDP and HDI measure the standard of living in a nation through one statistic, GDP is less comprehensive than HDI, making it not reflect societal well-being as all-rounded as HDI. GDP show total income of a country, indicating that only economic growth is taken into consideration. However, through means and expected years of schooling, life expectancy at birth and gross national income per capital, HDI can cover three dimensions: education, health and living standard, making HDI serve as a reference for both social and economical development. As mentioned above, to rate the societal well-being of a country, we can not only base on the total money that country generate because economical growth is only one component contributing to the sustainability of a country, and what GDP reflects is just a small part of the “health condition” of that country. HDI clearly give a broader and more adequate picture of at what level in development that country stand, because three dimensions (education, health and living standard) HDI refers are all necessary components to make that country stay strong. Saying GDP is less comprehensive than HDI because GDP focus on the wealth in total, but HDI focus on people. Even in HDI, there is a component of income, but income per capital not total income of the whole country as GDP. HDI place focus on people, each citizen in the country with easy access to good education, health and income will maintain the strength of the country. It stay tuned with the definition of societal well-being in the 21st, meaning a developed society is where citizens are treated well. If we base on GDP, the US ranked first because this great nation has the largest total income. However, if we look to HDI 2011, US only ranked 4th, while the 1st place was Norway. Looking into the societal well-being of these 2 nations, there is less crime, less unemployment rate, less crisis in Norway, because people in Norway has more means and expected years of