Economic Development (Research report)

THE PHYSICAL QUALITY OF LIFE INDEX (PQLI)

We just told that in order to represent the basic needs better it will be to 'prepare a "Composite Index". The well. known endeavour in this respect has been made by Morris D. Morris who developed 'Physical Quality of Life Index. (PQLI) whereby included just three indicators like life expectancy, infant mentality rate and, literacy rate. For each indicator he devised scale which includes the numbers ranging from I to 100 where 1 represents the worst performance by any country and 100 is the best performance. For life expectancy, the upper limit of 100 was assigned - to 77 years \which was achieved by Sweden in 1973, and the lower limit of 1 was assigned to 28 years which was the life expectancy of guinea_Bissau in 1950. Within these limits each country's life expectancy figure is ranked from 1 to 100. As the-midway between ,the upper and lower limits of 77 and 2& years is 52 years will be assigned a rating of 50. Similarly, for infant mortality, the upper limit was set at 9 per thousand was achieved by Sweden in 1973 and the lower limit 229 per thousand was achieved by  Gabon in 1950. The minimum rate regarding IMR was rated 100, while the highest IMR was given the scale of 1. whereas the literacy rates, measured as percentages from 1 to 100, provide their own direct scale. Once a county’s performance in life expectancy, infant mortality and literacy has been rated on the scale of 1 to 100, the composite index for the country is calculated by averaging the three ratings, giving equal weight to each.

            We present a table regarding Third World Countries Which have been ranked both by per capita income and PQLI in 1981.

Countries	Per capita GNP in dollars	PQLI
Gambia	348	20
Angola	790	21
Sudan	380	34
Pakistan	349	40
Saudi Arabia	12720	40
India	253	42
Iraq	3020	48
Qatar	27790	56
Tanzania	299	58
Zimbabwe	815	63
Brazil	2214	72
China	304	75
Sri Lanka	302	82
Singapore	5220	86
Taiwan	2503	87
Cost Rica	1476	89

           

The above statistics show that the countries which have low per capita GNP also have low PQLI. Whereas the countries have higher per capita GNP also have higher PQLI. But in certain cases, the reverse has been observed ___as the case of Saudi Aribia and Qatar which have higher GNP per capital but lower QPLI. The PQLI and per capita GNP of Pakistan are 40 and 349 respectively, whereas it is 42 and 253 in case of India.  Cost  Rice which is in the middle income group has a higher PQLI of 89. there are so many countries like Angola and Zimbabwe, China and India Taiwan and Iraq etc. are having at leat similar incomes but they differ heavily in respect  of PQLI. The above table also shows that the significant improvements in the basic quality of life can be achieved even before rise in GNP per capita. Again the higher of per capita GNP is not a guarantee of a better quality of life.

            The PQLI method is superior because it is devoid of those flaws which exits in per capita GNP measure. The PQLI measure keeps in view the welfare considerations, and it attaches the fruits of economic growth with human betterment. The QPLI also analyses the nature of distribution of  income as the more life expectancy, decrease in IMR and increase in literacy rates can become possible duty to better distribution of income. The PQLI can also be used like GNP method to make comparisons between countries.