Countries by Human capital index plus (HCI+): overall score, total (scale 0”“325)

Ranking 2025

Analysis

The Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+) measures the contributions of health, education, and on-the-job learning to worker productivity. As defined in the source note, the index measures the productivity of a child born today as a future worker relative to the benchmark of full health, complete education, and full employment in wage employment. Scores are expressed as absolute values on a 0-to-325 scale, where higher is better. The dataset covers 176 countries, with 170 of those (96.6%) providing data from the last seven years. All 176 datapoints are classified as official-quality. No extreme outliers were detected at the 3-standard-deviation threshold, and average year-over-year change is 5.2%, indicating stable measurement across the panel.

The top of the ranking is concentrated among high-income economies in East Asia, Western Europe, and Oceania. Japan (rank 1, 283.79) and Singapore (rank 2, 282.37) sit narrowly apart, while the Netherlands (rank 3, 270.63) and Sweden (rank 4, 270.01) anchor the European cluster. Australia (rank 5, 269.98) and Ireland (rank 6, 269.52) follow closely. The United Arab Emirates (rank 13, 262.77) is the highest-ranked Middle Eastern country, outperforming Germany (rank 19, 257.35) and the United States (rank 28, 251.72). Scores above 250 are shared by 29 countries, all of which are either high-income OECD members or Gulf states.

The middle of the ranking reveals notable variation. China ranks 56th with a score of 218.19, placing it below several Eastern European and Latin American nations. Viet Nam (rank 57, 214.37) outscores Saudi Arabia (rank 58, 209.77). Kazakhstan (rank 43, 229.79) ranks above Qatar (rank 44, 228.59) and Turkey (rank 45, 228.23). In the lower-middle range, Kenya (rank 98, 170.81) scores higher than Jordan (rank 99, 170.21) and Uzbekistan (rank 100, 169.61). The bottom 20 countries are almost entirely in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Lesotho (rank 170, 99.46), Mauritania (rank 171, 96.07), Mali (rank 172, 93.45), and Chad (rank 173, 89.38) followed by Afghanistan (rank 174, 80.25), Yemen (rank 175, 75.57), and Djibouti (rank 176, 72.43).

The HCI+ does not capture inequality in human capital distribution within countries, meaning national averages can mask significant internal disparities. The on-the-job learning component relies on proxies that may not uniformly reflect labor market conditions across all economies. Countries with large informal sectors may be underrepresented in the employment dimension. Data vintage varies: while 92.0% of countries have a value from the 2025 reference year, 6 countries do not, and a small number of scores may reflect older underlying survey data. Rankings based on scores that are numerically close should be interpreted cautiously, as small methodological differences can shift placements.

Methodology

The metric is the Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+) overall score, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators under indicator code HD_HCIP_OVRL_TO. The data year is 2025. As stated in the source note, the index measures the productivity of a child born today as a future worker relative to the benchmark of full health, complete education, and full employment in wage employment, calculating the contributions of health, education, and on-the-job learning to worker productivity. Scores are expressed as absolute values on a 0-to-325 scale. The dataset covers 176 countries, exceeding the 80-country coverage threshold. Of these, 170 countries (96.6%) have data from the last seven years, and 162 of 176 (92.0%) have a value specific to the 2025 reference year. All datapoints are classified as official quality (100%), meeting the 70% threshold. No extreme outliers were detected using a 3-standard-deviation test. Average year-over-year change is 5.2%, well below the 50% volatility threshold. Scores range from 72.43 (Djibouti) to 283.79 (Japan), a spread of 291.8%.

Sources

• World Bank