Switzerland tops UN Human Development Index for first time

Girl jumping by the river Rhine, Basel © Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

Switzerland topped the UN country ranking of human development with incomes and life expectancy rising in 2021.

Switzerland has ranked first in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index in 2021, mainly due to a rise in life expectancy and a rebound of its income per capita, following the end of all Covid-19 restrictions in the country.

This is a first for Switzerland, which ranked third in 2020.

Life expectancy reached 84 years in 2021, up from 83.1 years in 2020. The country’s income per capita hit $93,457 (CHF91,246) in 2021, a sharp rise from 2020, when it was $86,850. This follows global trends, with the pandemic knocking more than a year and a half off global life expectancy and plunging the global economy into recession.

“In 2021, Switzerland has a nice rebound in the life expectancy indicator. This was not the case for all countries, some of which saw their life expectancy continue to fall in 2021,” said Yanchun Zhang, chief statistician for the UNDP, in an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch.

The Human Development Index (HDI), published annually by the UNDP, measures a nation’s health, education, and standard of living. The index overall has fallen for the last two years – the first time since the index was launched 32 years ago – due to the pandemic, stalling global economic growth and the effects of climate change.

“This drop is almost universal but also deepening. If you track the historical HDI, every year some countries see a decline but no more than 10%, so less than 20 countries, but this year decline is a global shock. More than 40% of these countries have two consecutive years of decline, ” the report published on Thursday said.

Data from 191 countries show 90% failed to achieve a better, healthier, more secure life for their population over the past two years, setting the index back five years.

“Human development has fallen back to its 2016 levels, reversing much of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Without a sharp change of course, we may be heading towards even more deprivations and injustice,” the report warned.

South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with countries such as the Philippines still imposing partial lockdowns on much of the country. These regions have also suffered record drought and floods in 2021, the hottest year on record. Pakistan is currently struggling with heavy monsoon rains that have inundated swathes of the country. Floods have so far affected some 33 million people and caused at least 1,343 deaths over the past weeks.

“The world is scrambling to respond to back-to-back crises. We have seen with the cost of living and energy crises that, while it is tempting to focus on quick fixes like subsidising fossil fuels, immediate relief tactics are delaying the long-term systemic changes we must make,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Swiss exception

Switzerland was part of a cluster of countries that includes Norway and Iceland, which rebounded in 2021.

Nonetheless, a breakdown of Switzerland’s scores on the index points to certain disparities in the country, notably in gender development.

“Concerning the gender development index, which tracks human development of women compared to men, Switzerland has room to improve. Switzerland is in Group 2, the second-best performance group, which means female human development needs to catch up with male development to achieve gender parity,” said Zhang from the UNDP.

Between 1990 and 2021, Switzerland’s HDI value rose by 13%.