A survey of sub-provincial disparities of HDI in Iran

Abstract

Regional disparities of human development within many developing countries like Iran are serious obstacles to their integrated development. To adopt efficient policies in order to reduce existent disparities, it is necessary to measure development level of regions in the status quo. In this way, Human Development Index (HDI) is one of the efficient and widely used methods to measure human development of regions and countries. The aim of this study is to investigate sub-provincial disparities of human development in Iran. Meanwhile calculating HDI, this paper addresses two criticisms on HDI including substitution possibilities between its three indices and its common application at aggregated levels which may conceal wide regional disparities and blur the picture of human development within a country. To overcome these shortcomings, it was defined a simple set of fuzzy rules to determine the development level (DL) at sub-province level. Fuzzy classification of DL considerably reduces the substitution possibilities between individual components of HDI and directly reflects the effect of each component on overall DL, and analyzing human development at subprovince level reveals interregional and intraregional disparities more precisely. Based on suggested fuzzy classification, it was defined seven categories for DL including: very high, high, medium-high, medium, low-medium, low and very low. Results showed that a large number of sub-provinces lie in the lower levels of development, and revealed very stark differences of human development among sub-provinces. This study highlights the importance of reducing disparities in Iran to pave way for greater national integration and sustainable development.