Can Economic Growth be related to human development? Why yes/no? explain briefly.?

Question

Can Economic Growth be related to human development? Why yes/no? explain briefly.?

Answer 1

no it cannot be, economic growth is using new or existing resources in a better way so the productive capacity of an economy increases causing an outward shift in the production possibility curve...

economic growth also occurs due to new technology, training, education and discovery of natural resources...

however human development index is based on the well being of the economy... it has three parameters of education that an average person attains, medical services that a person receieves in his lifetime and GDP per capita...

if economic growth occured in a country it does not necessarily means that living standards have increased too... if a worker works more hours from one year to another it means that his leisure time has fallen though his income might have increased... this means that even though economic growth has occured living standards have fallen as people have less recreation time...

on the other hand, if a country produces less than before it means that there has been an economic downturn even though consumption has increased meaning a rise in the living standards... consumption may have increased by more imports, so even though no economic growth is recoreded yet people are better off.

Answer 2

Human development (assuming we take "human development" to mean "quantitative measurement of quality of life", as in, for example, in "the UN Human Development Index") is measured along three axis: health, education, and standard of living.  Standard of living is pretty much determined by economic development (with crime and environment bringing some minor variations).  Health and education also correlate with economic development quite well, but mostly with its PAST levels.  To simplify, the number of teachers and doctors a country has today depends on how well teacher and doctor training was financed at the time present-day teachers and doctors (and those who trained them) chose their professions...  

Cuba, for example, has much better healthcare than can be expected based on its current economic situation.  However, it is not all that surprising if you recall that in 1950, Cuba was as wealthy as Spain, so it could afford as many medical school professors per capita as Spain.  And medical schools, once established, don't get closed down ovenight...