textbook Flashcards
formula for Happy Planet Index:
HPI = EW * LE/EF
experienced well-being (EW) - people are asked where they place their present well-being on an imaginary ladder of ten steps, where zero is the worst possible and ten the best
life expectancy (LE) - assumed to be an important indicator of a nation’s health
ecological footprint (EF) - a measure of resource consumption devised by the WWF.
It is a per capita measure of the amount of land required to sustain a country’s resource consumption
Fundamental differences:
Differences in the beliefs, values, morals and codes of conduct of the world’s many societies mean there are some very different perceptions of what human development is all about.
Sharia law creates a code of conduct and a set of values that are incompatible with the perceptions of human development widely held elsewhere in the world.
The model could not be more different than that in today’s Bolivia.
Improvement in health, life expectancy and human rights
and a fourth factor?
A prevailing view of development today, but not a unanimous one, is that it should focus on:
* health
* life expectancy
* human rights.
Clearly, the first two are closely linked.
Some, not many, would add a fourth objective, namely increasing care of the environment.
Improvements in environmental quality (such as reducing pollution levels) are seen as being vital to the well-being of both the physical world and its inhabitants.
Most are agreed that advancements in health, life expectancy and human rights are only likely to be delivered by economic growth.
However, here is the problem.
Economic growth is frequently based on the exploitation of natural resources.
Such exploitation almost inevitably has adverse impacts on the environment.
This most likely explains why improvements in environmental quality are not always cited as a development objective.
Access to education
A literate, numerate, enterprising and skilled workforce is precious human capital.
Such capital is vital if a country is to move along the development pathway.
Education promises a better job and higher wages, and from this flow material benefits that raise the quality of life.
For those who adopt a more ‘human’ view of development, education provides a key to other things that collectively also enhance the quality of life.
For example, there is knowing and asserting your human rights
There is also being informed about personal health, hygiene and diet, and what the individual needs to do under those three headings for a longer life.
The basic negative indicator of education is illiteracy.
adult illiteracy rates of well over 25 per cent in much of Africa and South Asia, in contrast to Europe, North Asia, Australasia and southern South America where the rate falls below five per cent.
There are few countries that do not recognise the human right of access to education, even if it amounts to no more than a few years at primary school.
However, there are substantially more countries where there is overt gender discrimination, with females being increasingly barred or deterred from access to other levels of education - secondary and tertiary.
The case of Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai illustrates the deep-rooted ignorance and violence that prevents females from exercising their right to education in Pakistan.
But Pakistan is not alone in this.
Access to education is impeded by other obstacles, such as:
ethnicity
physical and mental disability
social class
wealth.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has done much throughout the world ‘to ensure that every child, boy or girl, has access to quality education as a fundamental human right and as a prerequisite for human development’
It has done much to raise levels of literacy around the world, but there is much still to be done.
In much of Africa and South Asia the female literacy rate is more than a quarter below that for males.
Sharia law
- Sharia law is the law of Islam.
- As a legal system, it covers a wide range of topics, from public and private behaviour to private beliefs.
According to Sharia law:
theft is punishable by the amputation of the right hand
a Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death
a non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death
a woman can have one husband, but a man can have up to four wives
a man can beat his wife for insubordination
a woman cannot drive a car
a woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
Of all the legal systems in the world today, Sharia law is perhaps the most intrusive and strict, especially with regard to women
It does not rest easily with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A concern in the UK and other’Christian’ countries is the danger that Sharia law operates as a parallel legal system
It is interesting to note that the list of countries currently applying Sharia law includes some of the world’s richest nations (Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates), as well as some of the poorest (Afghanistan, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen).
Human Development Index:
provides a good way of rounding off this section on the nature and measurement of human development.
It is another widely used measure to show the state of global development.
The HDI has breadth, in that it takes into account three important dimensions of the development process:
* life expectancy (an indicator of health and well-being)
* education (years of schooling)
* economic growth (per capita income).
Two particularly useful aspects of the HDI are:
It relies on statistical data that are collected frequently and widely at a national level.
Because of this it can be used to monitor development progress over a year or period of years.
differerences in Life expectancy around the world
over much of the world, life expectancy is now over 65 years.
The one obvious exception is much of Africa.
The traditional subdivision of the world on the basis of economic development into ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ (with low life expectancies in the former and high in the latter) is not entirely clear-cut.
The picture is muddied by relatively high values in South America, North Africa, the Middle East and throughout most of Asia.
We are seeing here most of the so-called emerging countries and really should distinguish them from the least developed countries.
gender differences in life expectancy
In nearly all populations, female life expectancy is greater.
In many developed countries, the difference can be five years or more.
For example, in the UK life expectancy for men is 78 years while it is 82 years for women. In the least-developed countries, the age differential is less.
For example, life expectancy in Bhutan is 68 years for men and 70 years for women.
In a few countries, the life expectancy situation is actually reversed: in Botswana it is 56 years for men and 52 for women.
The key factor here is the high rate of material mortality (death during childbirth).
The incidence of HIV/AIDS may also be a factor.
how Health can be measured
Portraying the global state of health is rather more challenging.
There are no easy options in terms of readily available data.
Life expectancy is probably as good as any, but there are two more overtly medical measures to be considered:
* The number of doctors per 100,000 people.
* The percentage of the population with regular access to essential drugs (Figure 10.11).
The second measure shows more clearly a threefold global subdivision of developed countries (over 95 per cent), emerging countries (between 50 and 95 per cent) and least-developed countries (less than 50 per cent).
Spatial variations in the developing world
the point that life expectancies are lower in the developing world compared with the developed world.
Now look at Africa and note that there are some significant variations in life expectancy in this part of the developing world, particularly between the north and the rest of the continent.
Here, as elsewhere, there is a positive correlation between life expectancy and per capita income.
The relationship is explained by the fact that with diminishing income, the following critical necessities of life become less guaranteed:
* food
* safe water
* proper sanitation
* healthcare (Figure 10.11).
A shortfall in any of these necessities immediately increases the risks of disease, ill health and premature death.
Spatial variations in the developed world:
Life expectancy and health also vary considerably from place to place within the developed world.
Despite higher levels of economic development and income, there are significant national differences.
As in the developing world, the same four access factors come into play. Here the term deprivation is used to describe a situation of poor diet, poor housing and poor healthcare.
In other words, these symptoms of poverty combine to create health risks that ultimately increase the death rate and lower the life expectancy.
Life expectancy within Brazil
**stood at 70 years for men and 77 years for women. **
been quite considerable variations within Brazil at a state level, albeit some years previously.
The highest life expectancies occur in southeast Brazil, stretching from Minas Gerais to Rio Grande do Sul.
Here is the core of the Brazilian economy, and presumably the higher life expectancies can be explained in terms of beneficial spin-offs such as jobs, higher wages and adequate housing.
The surprisingly low life expectancy in the small state of Rio de Janeiro reflects the many favelas (shanty towns) located in this huge metropolitan area.
The relatively low values in the northern part of the country, particularly in the Amazon lowlands, may reflect its remoteness and relatively undeveloped nature.
It may also reflect the fact that this is where many of Brazil’s remaining indigenous people live.
They occupy great tracts of very sparsely populated forest.
They rely on traditional rather than modern medicines for healthcare. It is estimated that about** 900,000 Amerindians now live in Brazil, compared with five million when the Europeans began to colonise South America.**
In Brazil, as in other countries with significant indigenous populations (Australia, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA), it is estim**ated that native peoples have up to twenty years less life expectancy than non-indigenous people.
Aboriginal life expectancy in Australia:
Australia enjoys one of the highest life expectancies of any country in the world: 79 years for men and 83 years for women.
It is currently ranked sixth among OECD countries.
Indigenous people make up around three per cent of Australia’s population of nearly 24 million.
Aboriginal life expectancy for men is currently estimated to be 10.6 years lower than that of non-indigenous men, and 9.5 years lower for women.
Over the last five years Aboriginal life expectancy has increased by about one year for both genders.
But why the big difference between the two components of Australia’s population? According to the UN, the quality of life for Aboriginal people is the second worst in the world.
There may well be a genetic element in the explanation of these differences, but it is widely agreed that other contributory factors include:
* poor housing
* dispossession of their traditional lands
* low education level
* high unemployment
* hidden ethnic discrimination
* inability of politicians to address Aboriginal problems
* use of illicit substances and alcohol abuse
* heavy smoking.
While there is more spending per capita on the indigenous than the non-indigenous populations, access to healthcare is a problem.
Many Aboriginal people lack the transport to get them to medical centres.
This particular problem cannot be wholly blamed on Aboriginal people choosing to live in remote areas (the Outback) (Figure 10.16); in fact, only 25 per cent of them do - over 30 per cent now live in major cities.
the 8 Millennium Development Goals
a sample of the UDHR’s 30 articles
