3.2.2 Section B: The Changing Economic World - Development Flashcards
What is development?
development means positive change that makes things better
as a country develops it usually means that people’s standard of living and quality of life will improve
Different factors that affect a country’s level and speed of development:
environmental factors such as natural hazards e.g. earthquakes
economic factors such as trade and debt
social factors such as access to safe water and education
political factors such as a state government or civil war
Development gap:
the difference in standards of living between the world’s HIC’s, LIC’s and NEE’s
Gross National Income (GNI):
- wealth and income can be used to describe a country’s level of economic development
- a common measure used by the World Bank
- GNI is the total value of goods and services produced by a country, plus money earned from and to other countries
- is expressed as per head (per Capita) of the population
- the World Bank uses 4 levels of different levels of income to divide the countries of the world into: high, upper middle, lower middle, low
- the UK, most of Europe, North America, Australia, Argentina and Japan are all HICs
- not all LICs are in Africa
- some countries may seem to have a high GNI as they are relatively wealthy and have a small population - doesn’t always mean that their citizens enjoy a good quality of life
- some countries have begun of experience higher rates of economic development with a rapid growth of industry
- known as NEEs e.g. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS countries) and the MINT countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey)
What is the HDI?
- devised by the UN, HDI links wealth to health and education
- it aims to show a country’s economic growth
- it is a social measure
What measures are used by the HDI?
- life expectancy at birth
- number of yrs of education
- GNI per capita
How is HDI expressed?
HDI is expressed in values of 0-1 where 1 is the highest - this enable countries to be ranked
What were the top 3 countries in HDI in 2014?
highest ranked country in 2014 was Norway (0.944), followed by Australia (0.935) and then Switzerland (0.930)
What place was the UK in terms of HDI in 2014?
- in 2014 UK was ranked 14th (0.930)
What was the lowest ranked country in 2014 in terms of HDI?
lowest ranked country was Niger (188th) with a HDI of (0.348)
Where were the top 10 lowest ranked countries in terms of HDI all found in 2014?
the lowest ranked 10 countries were all in Africa
Factors that may limit the usefulness of social and economic measures of development:
- a single measure of development can give a false picture, and it gives the average for the whole country which can skew statistics
- data could be out of date or hard to collect
- data may be unreliable (infant mortality rate is way higher than the figures given by some countries)
- focus on certain aspects may not take into account subsistence or informal economy which are important in many countries
- government corruption may mean that data is unreliable
- in many countries the top 10% may own 80% of the countries wealth
- wealth may also be concentrated in cities rather than rural areas
How useful is the birth rate for measuring development?
- a reliable measure
- as a country develops women are more likely to become educated and have a career rather than staying at home
- they may marry later and have fewer children
How useful is the death rate for measuring development?
- a less reliable measure
- developing countries may have proportionally lower death rates than developed countries as there may be proportionally more young people
How useful is the infant mortality rate for measuring development?
useful measure of a country’s healthcare system
How useful is knowing the number of doctors per 1000 people for measuring development?
indicates how much money a country has for medical services
How useful is the literacy rate for measuring development?
- shows whether a country has a good education system
How useful is the % of people who of access to clean water for measuring development?
- shows a country has a modern infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs and water treatment plans
What sort of indicators are generally more useful?
an indicator with several variable e.g. the Human Development Index (HDI) or the Physical Quality of LIfe Index (PQLI)
How can we measure quality of life?
- economic and social measures use broad statistics to measure standard of living for whole countries - they cannot give an accurate measure for an individuals quality of life
- a good quality of life will mean different things in different countries e.g. safety and security, freedom, right to vote, women’s rights, happiness etc.
How can we compare people’s quality of life and standard of living?
- people in different countries have different ideas of what affects their quality of life
- refugees fleeing war-torn Syria in 2016 to seek sanctuary in Europe - they have virtually nothing but are at least relatively safe
- very difficult to use social indictors to compare different countries’ level of development
Standard of living:
the level of wealth, comfort, material goods, and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class or geographic area
Quality of life:
an individuals perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live, and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns
What does a demographic transition model show?
- the changes over time in the population of a country