4.3.1. Measures of development

Question 1

What is economic development?

Answer 1

Sustainable increase in living standards for a country, typically characterized by increases in life span, education levels and income.

Question 2

What are the two different indicators of economic development?

Answer 2

1. Single Indicators- Number of doctors/ 1000 people, infant mortality rate, % of pop with access to clean drinking water
2. Composite Indicators (Multiple individual indicators combined into single index)- HDI

Question 3

What is the Human Development Index?

Answer 3

Developed by the UN, it’s a combination of 3 indicators

Question 4

What are the three indicators of the HDI?

Answer 4

1. Health- life expectancy at birth
2. Education- Mean years of schooling alongside expected years of schooling
3. Income- GNI per capita at PPP

Question 5

What number does the HDI index rank countries between? What does each score mean?

Answer 5

0-1 ranked between
Closer to 1= higher level of economic development + better standard of living
<0.550= low development
0.550-0.699= medium development
0.700-0.799= high development
> 0.800= very high development

Question 6

What are the advantages of using the HDI to compare levels of development?

Answer 6

-More useful than single indicator(1 factor like birth rate) metrics
-Incorporates 3 important metrics
-Widely used all over world= meaningful comparisons
-Provides goal for govt’s to improve
- Provides citizens with an understanding of their quality of life compared to in other countries

Question 7

What are the disadvantages of using the HDI to compare levels of development?

Answer 7

-Doesn’t measure inequality
-Doesn’t measure or compare levels of absolute or relative poverty that exist
-Doesn’t provide short-term info. Lags reality

Question 8

What are some more single indicators of economic development that can be used to compare relative standard of living of countries?

Answer 8

-Proportion of male pop engaged in agriculture
-Energy consumption per person
-Proportion of population that has access to clean water
-Proportion of population with internet access
-Mobile phones/ 1000 people
-Number of girls in primary education

Question 9

What are two other composite indicators? (Like HDI)

Answer 9

1. IHDI- inequality adjusted HDI
2. Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Question 10

What is the MPI?

Answer 10

Multi-dimensional poverty index is a poverty measure that reflects the multiple deprivations that poor people face in education, health and living standards

Question 11

What are the characteristics of the IHDI?

Answer 11

-Created to deal with lack of info that HDI provides on inequality
-Provides greater insight into the differences in human development as opposed to average human development

Question 12

What are the characteristics of the MPI?

Answer 12

-Measures complexities of poor people’s lives, individually and collectively each year
-Tracks deprivation with 3 dimensions of education, health and living standards and 10 indicators e.g. years of schooling, child mortality + sanitation etc…
-Identifies which of these 10 deprivations each household experiences
-Identifies households as poor if they suffer deprivations across 1/3 or more of the indicators
-Can help to make policies and work to reduce poverty