KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 ― Malaysia was ranked the 62nd best country to live in the world by the United Nations (UN) in its latest study measuring human development, but still lost to southern neighbour Singapore which placed 11th.

The Human Development Index (HDI) gave Malaysia “high human development” scores in its survey of 188 countries that looked at health and life expectancy, knowledge and a decent standard of living last year, but gave Singapore “very high human development” marks for the same categories.

Malaysia beat other countries in Southeast Asia in the survey released this week, including Indonesia (110th), the Philippines (115th), Vietnam (116th), Cambodia (143rd) and Myanmar (148th).

Malaysia’s HDI score has been increasing over the years from 0.641 in 1990 to 0.779 last year, indicating that the country’s human development improved from “medium” to “high”. A higher score denotes greater human development.

The UN 2015 Human Development Report (HDR) noted that human development has been uneven across and within countries.

“In Malaysia the richest 10 per cent of the population had 32 per cent of national income in 2012, the poorest 10 per cent of the population had only 2 per cent,” said the report.

The HDI’s components comprised life expectancy from birth, the number of years one is expected to spend at school, and the gross national income per capita.

“The 2015 report urges countries and societies to promote decent work opportunities and sustainability both by improving education, and social protection, particularly for vulnerable groups, and by engaging in collective action and protective legislation to eradicate work that exploits and demeans,” said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a HDR press statement on the Asia-Pacific region.

“The Asia and the Pacific region as a whole has the largest numbers of people trapped in dangerous and demeaning work including forced labour, trafficking and child labour: the second-highest regional incidence of child labour (after Sub-Saharan Africa) and largest absolute number of child labourers ― 78 million (5-17 years), with over half in hazardous work,” it added.