Human Capital Index Plus

What is the HCI+?

Human capital—the health, skills, and knowledge people develop over their lives—is central to productivity, jobs, and economic growth. Yet progress in building human capital unfolds gradually across many life stages, making it difficult to track where countries are succeeding and where gaps remain. Additionally, policymakers often lack short-term incentives to invest in human capital, since returns may take years to materialize.

The Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+) addresses this challenge by providing a clear, comparable measure of how investments in people translate into future productivity. It shows how much human capital a child born today can expect to accumulate from birth through working age, based on the country's outcomes in health, education, and employment.

The HCI+ is anchored in rigorous research on productivity and earnings: each 1-point increase in the HCI+ corresponds to approximately 1 percent higher expected labor income and productivity.

What does the HCI+ include?

The HCI+ combines three pillars that reflect how human capital accumulates across the life cycle:

• Health: Outcomes include adult survival and stunting, which are related to people’s ability to learn and work productively.
• Education: Outcomes related to schooling, including learning-adjusted years of schooling and tertiary education.
• On-the-job learning: Outcomes in key employment indicators, including labor force participation, unemployment, and wage employment, which together influence skill accumulation and expected lifetime productivity.

What is new compared to earlier measures?

The previous edition of the human capital index measured human capital outcomes through age 18, while the HCI+ extends into adulthood. This highlights the importance of:

• Skills acquired beyond basic education
• Job quality and learning in the workplace
• Gender gaps and unequal access to productive employment

How can the HCI+ be used?

The HCI+ helps policymakers answer questions such as:

• Where are the largest human capital gaps—health, education, or employment?
• How much would productivity rise if learning outcomes improved?
• How much do employment differences between men and women contribute to earnings gaps?

An interactive HCI+ App allows users to explore these questions and see how specific improvements translate into productivity gains.