Social Perspective of Human Development

Abstract

Recently, there exists a change in the focus of studies on the factors which determine human development, and this change suggests that there are other social factors which may contribute or influence the pace of progress. There is insufficient literature linking religiosity, happiness level, the political stability of the society, and the perceived corruption of public office to development. This study claims that human growth indicated by the Human Development Index (HDI) is not just affected by life expectancy, participation in education, and income but also by other social factors like religion, happiness, corruption in the government, political stability of the society. Employing the descriptive correlational method in determining the relationship of religiosity, happiness, corruption, and political stability to human development, we found that happiness has the most significant effect on human development with an F value of 4.76 and p-value of 0.041. We conclude that a happy society is a developed society.