The Human Capital Index (HCI) is an international metric that benchmarks key components of human capital across countries. Measuring the human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by her 18th birthday, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers. In this way, it underscores the importance for governments and societies of investing in the human capital of their citizens. The HCI was launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project (HCP), a global effort to accelerate progress towards a world where all children can achieve their full potential.
While data on COVID-19’s impacts on human-capital outcomes are only beginning to emerge, simulations conducted for this report suggest that school closures combined with family hardship are significantly affecting the accumulation of human capital for the current generation of school-age children. The impacts appear comparable in magnitude to the gains that many countries achieved during the previous decade, suggesting that the pandemic may roll back many years’ worth of human-capital progress. In parallel, COVID-19’s disruption of health services, losses in income, and worsened nutrition are expected to increase child mortality and stunting, with effects that will be felt for decades to come.