The Impact of Air Freight and the Human Development Index: The Volume of Freight, Health, Knowledge and Standard of Living Across Countries
Keywords:
Air Freight; Computers; Communication; HDI; Quality of Life
Abstract
Existing literature mostly focused on the relationship between freight and standard of living of individual countries (Leite et al., 2022; Sarram & Ivey, 2017). Moreover, many studies merely emphasized the impact of air freight and air quality (Facanha & Horvath, 2007; Ramani, Jaikumar & Charman, 2019), but not the overall quality of living of humans across countries. This current study filled the literature gap by investigating some of the factors that might predict the Human Development Index (HDI) of 94 countries by including air freight as one of the independent variables. The HDI can be seen as the average achievement of three basic aspects of human development, namely health, knowledge and standard of living (United Nations Development Programme, 2023). Three factors were included in the analysis to predict the HDI values: air freight, computers, communication and other services and the number of infant deaths. Air freight involved volume of freight, express and diplomatic bags carried on every freight stage. The results showed that the three independent variables significantly explained approximately 39% of the total variance in the HDI. Though air freight was not the strongest predictor of the HDI, results showed that higher volume of freight was significantly related to higher HDI.
References
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Belkacem, A. N., Jamil, N., Palmer, J. A., Ouhbi, S., & Chen, C. (2020). Brain computer interfaces for improving the quality of life of older adults and elderly patients. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 1-11.
Chakravarty, S. R. (2003). A generalized human development index. Review of Development Economics, 7(1), 99-114.
Chang, C. P., & Ying, Y. H. (2008). The generative power of air freight in the trade openness – economic growth nexus in African countries. South African Journal of Economics, 76(3), 493-512.
Choi, J. H. (2023). The value of time and the impact on the air freight product portfolio - A study of the South Korean market 2017–2021. Journal of Air Transport Management, 109.
Complete Disseratation (July 24, 2024). Regression Table. Retrieved from: https://www.statisticssolutions.com/regression-table/
Esposto, A. G., & Zaleski, P. A. (1999). Economic freedom and the quality of life: An empirical analysis. Constitutional Political Economy, 10, 185–197.
Facanha, C., & Horvath, A. (2007). Evaluation of life-cycle air emission factors of freight transportation. Environmental Science and Technology, 41(20), 7138-7144.
Haq, R., & Zia, U. (2013). Multidimensional wellbeing: An index of quality of life in a developing economy. Social Indicators Research, 114, 997-1012.
Hertz, E., Hebert, J. R., & Landon, J. (1994). Social and environmental factors and life expectancy, infant mortality, and material mortality rates: Results of a cross-national comparison. Social Science & Medicine, 39(1), 105-114.
Kaplan, R. M. (2002). Quality of life: an outcome perspective. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 83(2), S44-S50.
Keles, R. (2012). The quality of life and the environment. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 35, 23-32.
Khazaei, S., & Ayubi, E. (2016). Variations of infant and under five child mortality rates around the world, the role of human development index. International Journal of Pediatrics, 4(5), 1671-1677.
Lee, K. S., Park, S. C., Khoshnood, B., Hsieh, H. L., & Mittendorf, R. (2019). Human development index as a predictor of infant and maternal mortality rate. The Journal of Pediatrics, 131(3), 430-433.
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Liu, Z., Pyplacz, P., Ermakova, M., & Konev, P. (2020). Sustainable construction as a competitive advantage. Sustainability, 12(15), 5946.
Nguyen, Q. H. (2024). Modeling the volatility of international air freight: A case study of Singapore using the SARIMAX-EGARCH model. Journal of Air Transport Management, 117.
Obasi, C. N., Brown, R., Ewers, T., Barlow, S., Gassman, M., Zgierska, A., Coe, C. L., & Barrett, B. (2012). Advantage of meditation over exercise in reducing cold and flu illness is related to improved function and quality of life. Epidemiology and Impact of Respiratory Virus Infections, 7(6), 938-944.
Phyo, A. Z. Z., Freak-Poli, R., Craig, H., Gasevic, D., Stocks, N. P., Gonzalez-Chica, D. A., & Ryan, J. (2020). Quality of life and mortality in the general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health, 20(1596).
Ratheeswari, K. (2018). Information communication technology in education. Journal of Applied and advanced research, 3(1), 45-47.
Ramani, T., Jaikumar, R., & Charman, N. (2019). Air quality and health impacts of freight modal shifts: Review and assessment. Transportation Research Record, 2673 (3), 153-164.
Salvesen D., Renski H. (2003, January). The importance of quality of life in the location decisions of new economy firms. Chapel Hill: Center for Urban and Region Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sarram, G., & Ivey, S. S. (2017). Evaluating a survey of public livability perceptions and quality-of-life indicators: Considering freight-traffic impact. International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure, 86-98.
Shek, D. T. L. (2021). COVID-19 and quality of life: Twelve reflections. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 16, 1-11.
Slegers, K., van Boxtel, M. P. J., & Jolles, J. (2008). Effects of computer training and internet usage on the well-being and quality of life of older adults: A randomized, controlled study. The Journal of Gerontology, 63(3), P176-P184.
Stroup, M. D. (2007). Economic freedom, democracy and quality of life. World Development, 35(1), 52-66.
Theofilou, P. (2013). Quality of life: Definition and measurement. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 9(1), 150-162.
Temjanovski, R., & Jovanov, T. (2020). Transforming freight mobility in the cities and promoting of green logistics. Macedonian International Journal of Marketing, 6 (11), 113-121.
UNDP (2023, September 9). Human development index. Retrieved from: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI.
UNDP (2024, August 2). Human development report 2023/2024 technical notes. Retrieved from: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2023-24_HDR/hdr2023-24_technical_notes.pdf.
UNDP (2018, March 22). UNDP as ‘knowledge frontier’. Retrieved from: https://www.undp.org/blog/undp-knowledge-frontier.
Utsey, S. O., Bolden, M. A., Brown, C. F., & Chae, M. H. (2001). Assessing quality of life in the context of culture. n L. A. Suzuki, J. G. Ponterotto, & P. J. Meller (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural assessment: Clinical, psychological, and educational applications (2nd ed., pp. 191–216). Jossey-Bass/Wiley.
Wikipedia (2024, August 5). Human Development Index. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index.
Wikj, R. G. V. (2005). Assessment of quality of life. Advantages and pitfalls. Clinical and Experimental Allergy Reviews, 5(1), 32-35.
World Bank (2024, August 3). About us. Retrieved from: https://data.worldbank.org/about.
World Bank (2023, September 17). Air transport, freight (million ton-km). Retrieved from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.GOOD.MT.K1.
World Bank Group (2024, August 5). Computer, communications and other services (% of commercial service imports. Retrieved from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.VAL.OTHR.ZS.WT.
Published
2025-05-10
How to Cite
Chan, Y. H., & Cheung, H. Y. (2025). The Impact of Air Freight and the Human Development Index: The Volume of Freight, Health, Knowledge and Standard of Living Across Countries. International Journal of Social Science Research and Review, 8(5), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v8i5.2701
Section
Main Articles
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