Russia Outranks Japan in Human Capital Among Young Adults

Russia has ranked 26th in human capital development according to the Human Capital Report 2015, compiled by American human resources consultancy Mercer.

By comparison, the United States ranked 17th while South Korea was 36th. Human capital is a concept of the health, education and social attributes as they reflect on a person's ability to perform labor that produces economic value.

Russia's most productive age group according to the report is 15-24 year olds, who are 13th in the world according to the index. The group outranks Japan's, which is 21st in the ranking.

Russia was ranked 51st in Mercer's 2013 report, advancing 25 positions in two years. Part of the change is due to the refined methodology that adjusted rankings by age group to "avoid a conflation of input and outcome variables." Measures such as intellectual property rights were removed from the index and moved to additional information.

As a result of the change in methodology as well as countries' accomplishments in health and education, among other attributes, Finland moved from second to first place in the ranking while the United States moved from 16th to 17th.