Human Development Clustering in Indonesia: Using K-Means Method and Based on Human Development Index Categories

Abstract

The quality of life for Indonesia's population can be measured from the human development index in each province. People who have a good quality of life indicate a prosperous life. The government has the responsibility to advance the welfare of the nation under the mandate of the constitution. The clustering of the human development index (HDI) in Indonesia is used to determine the distribution of quality of life or the distribution of social welfare. In this study, the K-Means method, which is a popular non-hierarchical clustering method, is used to classify human development in each province based on HDI indicators, namely Expected Years of Schooling, Mean Years of Schooling, Adjusted Per Capita Expenditure, and Life Expectancy at Birth. Provinces in Indonesia are clustered into 4 clusters. These results were also compared with the clustering based on HDI categories determined by Statistics Indonesia based on certain cut-off values. According to the HDI category, provinces in Indonesia fall into the medium, high, and very high categories. The results of the two groupings show that there is a trend toward appropriate characteristics for each group. Thus, K-Means can classify provinces in Indonesia according to the characteristics of the HDI indicators.