Measuring Development

Studying development is about measuring how 'developed' one country is compared to other countries, or to the same country in the past.

Development measures how economically, socially, culturally or technologically advanced a country is. The two most common ways of measuring development are economic development and human development.

Economic development is a measure of a country's wealth and how it is generated (for example agriculture is considered less economically advanced then banking).
Human development measures the access the population has to wealth, jobs, education, nutrition, health, leisure and safety - as well as political and cultural freedom. Material elements, such as wealth and nutrition, are described as the standard of living. Health and leisure are often referred to as quality of life.

Indications of development

Regions with high levels of development can be recognised by a high availability of medicines, health technology and educated workers.

There is no single way to calculate the level of development because of the variety of economies, cultures and peoples. Geographers use a series of development indicators to compare the development of one region against another.

These indicators include:

Health. Does the population have access to medical care? What level of healthcare is available - basic or advanced? Is it free?
Industry. What type of industry dominates? LEDCs focus on primary industries, such as farming, fishing and mining. MEDCs focus on secondary industries, such as manufacturing. The most advanced countries tend to focus more on tertiary or service industries, such as banking and information technology.
Education. Does the population have access to education? Is it free? What level of education is available (ie primary, secondary or further/higher education)?

The 'Brandt Line' Divide

MEDCs are countries which have a high standard of living and a large GDP. LEDCs are countries with a low standard of living and a much lower GDP.

The map shows the locations of LEDCs and MEDCs. Most of the southern hemisphere is less developed, while countries in the northern hemisphere are more developed.

The Brandt's north-south divide.

The divide between MEDCs and LEDCs.

Development often takes place in an uneven way. A country may have a very high GDP - derived, for example, from the exploitation of rich oil reserves - while segments of the population live in poverty and lack access to basic education, health and decent housing.

Hence the importance of human development indicators, measuring the non-economic aspects of a country's development...

Human Development Indicators:

Life expectancy - the average age to which a person lives, eg this is 79 in the UK and 48 in Kenya.
Infant mortality rate - counts the number of babies, per 1000 live births, who die under the age of one. This is 5 in the UK and 61 in Kenya.
Poverty - indices count the percentage of people living below the poverty level, or on very small incomes (eg under £1 per day).
Access to basic services - the availability of services necessary for a healthy life, such as clean water and sanitation.
Access to healthcare - takes into account statistics such as how many doctors there are for every patient.
Risk of disease - calculates the percentage of people with diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Access to education - measures how many people attend primary school, secondary school and higher education.
Literacy rate - is the percentage of adults who can read and write. This is 99 per cent in the UK, 85 per cent in Kenya and 60 per cent in India.
Access to technology - includes statistics such as the percentage of people with access to phones, mobile phones, television and the internet.
Male/female equality - compares statistics such as the literacy rates and employment between the sexes.
Government spending priorities - compares health and education expenditure with military expenditure and paying off debts.

Economic Development Indicators:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year.
Gross National Product (GNP) measures the total economic output of a country, including earnings from foreign investments.
GNP per capita is a country's GNP divided by its population. (Per capitameans per person.)
Economic growth measures the annual increase in GDP, GNP, GDP per capita, or GNP per capita.
Inequality of wealth is the gap in income between a country's richest and poorest people. It can be measured in many ways, (eg the proportion of a country's wealth owned by the richest 10 per cent of the population, compared with the proportion owned by the remaining 90 per cent).
Inflation measures how much the prices of goods, services and wages increase each year. High inflation (above a few percent) can be a bad thing, and suggests a government lacks control over the economy.
Unemployment is the number of people who cannot find work.
Economic structure shows the division of a country's economy betweenprimary, secondary and tertiary industries.
Demographics study population growth and structure. It compares birth rates to death rates, life expectancy and urban and rural ratios. Many LEDCshave a younger, faster-growing population than MEDCs, with more people living in the countryside than in towns. The birth rate in the UK is 11 per 1,000, whereas in Kenya it is 40.

Measures of development

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the most common measure of development.
GNI (Gross National Income) is also a commonly used measure of development.
HDI (Human Development index) is also a measure of development. Every country is given a number between 0 - 1. It measures:

Life expectancy at birth
Mean years of schooling
Expected years of schooling
Gross national income per capita.

Lastly, we'll look into the arguments for these 3 different measures: GDP, GNI and HDI.

Pros and Cons of GDP:

Positives (Pros) of GDP:

There is a lot of historical data to compare as many countries measure GDP.
It remains the same (uniform). Therefore easy to calculate and consistent to measure across all countries.
It summarises a range of economic information and determines the comparative strengths and weaknesses of various sectors.
GDP helps policy-makers and analysts to easily guide, adjust and implement economic policy.
GDP is widely used in different parts of the world that give economist studies in comparing countries.
GDP serve as accurate barometer of the economic climate, where it provides the government and business' with useful information to adjust in different kinds of contingency problems like recession and depression.

Negatives (Cons) of GDP:

GDP does not include non-market activities. These activities are based on production and consumption that occur outside the market economy that does not have a price attached like unpaid house workers, volunteer work, barter and the illegal drug trade / the black market. It also does not include domestic household products.
Does not consider the "real value" of money as it uses price x volume (yet prices change based on inflation, purchasing power of the currency changes)
It does not accurately measure the changes in productivity due to not adjusting with inflation.
Does not consider a nation's distribution of wealth or determine a nation's poverty.
Can be misleading, for example in China; it has one of the world's largest economies, which would lead you to think quality of life there is good.

Next, we'll look at Gross National Income (GNI).

Pros and Cons of GNI:

Positives / Pros of GNI:

GNI per capita will tell you exactly how much income a person gets on average, this makes it more accurate.
Figures are more easily obtainable than measurements for HDI and can be compared on a yearly basis as the population and national income is usually released by governments on a yearly basis.

Negatives / Cons of GNI:

It indicates the income of the whole country, whether it has a population of one billion or one million. For example in China, as this GNI is divided over more than 1 billion people, it isn't accurate at all compared to measuring a population of 100,000, for example.
Again, this measurement can be misleading if there are a lot of super-rich who earn a lot of income, and on the other hand, many people with little/no income.

Lastly, we'll analyse the Human Development Index (HDI).

Pros and Cons of HDI:

Positives (Pros) of HDI:

It includes more than one measurement making it more accurate.
Development involves more than just economical factors, so the fact that the HDI includes education and standard of living, making it more reliable for measuring development.
The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with such different human development outcomes. For example, the Bahamas and New Zealand have similar levels of GNI per person, but life expectancy and years of schooling differ greatly between the countries, resulting in New Zealand having a much higher HDI than the Bahamas.

Negatives (Cons) of HDI:

Doesn't take other important factors into consideration, such as gender equality, literacy rate, death rate, poverty and distribution of wealth.
The Index has also been criticised as "redundant" and a "reinvention of the wheel", measuring aspects of development that have already been exhaustively studied.
Lacks year to year comparability as a large amount of countries do not release the data required to calculate HDI on a yearly basis, as they do for GDP, for example.
Accused of assessing development differently in different groups of countries
It is difficult to use the HDI to monitor changes in human development in the short-term because two of its components, namely life expectancy and mean years of schooling change slowly.