Geography- the changing economic world PART 1

Development

Measures how economically, socially, culturally and technologically advanced a country is

What does quality of life measure?

General well-being of individuals and societies

Is quality of life a qualitative or quantitative measure?

Qualitative measure

Why is quality of life not easily measured?

It is not easily quantifiable

What does standard of living refer to?

The level of wealth, comfort, material goods, and necessities available to a certain group of people in a specific geographic area.

What is the basis for determining the standard of living?

Primarily income and what that level of income allows a person to buy in terms of necessities and luxury goods.

HIC

High Income Country- GNI per capita >$12,055

LIC

Low Income Country- GNI per capita <$1,085

NEE

Newly Emerging Economy- developing nation that is becoming more engaged with global markets as it grows

The development Gap

THe differences in the level of people's total well-being and happiness, physical standards of living and national wealth between countries

Why do inequalities exist between countries?

Colonisation- in the past countries like the UK took over African countries and plundered their resources, meaning rich countries became richer and the African countries couldn't develop

How has the development gap grown

Over time lots of countries industrialised howver others such as Congo have the same GDP as in the 1800's

Gross National Income (GNI) per head

the total value of a country's goods, services and overseas investments divided by the number of people in that country

Economic indicators of development

GNI per head

Social indicators of development

People per doctor, literacy rate, access to safe water

Demographic (vital population statistics) indicators of development

Birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate and life expectancy

Human Development Index

Development indicator that combines life expectancy at birth, education and income.

Limitations of economic indicators of development

• Data can be out of date or hard to collect (due to difficulty in entering war torn countries or incapable governments).

• Data may be unreliable (IMR may be higher in some locations than the statistics given because the government doesn't have official records of people living in slums)

• Government corruption (data is unreliable as they want to make their country look better)

• they only focus on some aspects of development and don't take into account subsistence of informal economies which are predominant in many countries (don't pay taxes so not part of stats)

• the numbers are an average for the whole country (hides variations between regions or classes of people within a country.)

• dont take into account quality of life whixh is important in social terms.

Limitations of social Indicators of development

Rapid migration makes it difficult to collect data,

natural disasters e.g hurricanes and

some people may lie

3 measures of HDI

1. life expectancy
2. education (mean years of schooling)
3. GNI

Demographic Transition Model

describes how the population of a country changes over time (it gives the changes in BR and DR and shows that countries goes through 5 populations of population change)

Stage 1 of the DTM

HIgh stationary/fluctuating:
- high BR, DR but low income. This is because in the traditional rural society of a lesser developed country, farming is the main job so families have lots of children so that they can work on the farm and earn income. Lack of medical knowlege, disease and famine causes a high DR. LE is low

Stage 2 of the DTM

Early expanding:development increases
- BR stays high however DR rapidly drops as sanitation and medical care increases and people can earn more

Stage 3 of DTM

Late expanding: development increases due to rural-urban shift- more people start to work in factories and as this doesn't require you to have lots of children so BR decreases. DR also decreases. Income increases as factory workers earn much more money than farmers

Stage 4 of the DTM

Low stationary/fluctuating:
- BR is low because status of women has improved- putting jobs and making money over having children
- DR is low and LE is high

Stage 5 of the DTM

Natural Decline- DR becomes higher than BR because in developed countries, people don't need to have lots of children and instead work more and earn income

Advantages of the DTM

- dynamic- shows change over time
- helps to explain what has happened and why it has happened in that particular sequence
- describes what happened in the UK
- many other countries went through this same process

Disadvantage of the DTM

- based on the experience of industrialised countries- not relevant to non-industrialised countries
- original model needed to be adapted to include the 5th stage for countries in Western Europe and Japan
- assumes that stage 3 follows several decade after stage 2 and that DR fell as a consequence of changes brought about by changes in BR, BR may be more affected by culture and access to birth control (or sped up by government policy).

Physical causes of uneven development

-landlocked countries- World Trade happens by boat so if you have no access to the sea you can't import and export, no world trade so will likely be poor
- natural disasters- hurricanes could destroy most of an area, reducing development, and famines and droughts can cause many deaths
- relief- difficult to build factories in mountainous areas
- climate- some countries have climate related diseases like malaria while others are too dry to grow crops
- natural resources- lack of these means they have nothing to sell

Economic causes of uneven development

- weak currency- minor fluctuations in LIC currencies can have huge impact on value of the money companies recieve so no company will take this money so LICs can't invest into projects or build things and will remain poor
- unfair trade relationships- keeps countries in the primary sector

because most HICs buy products from secondary sector countries which sell products with tarrifs and quotas. Thus, once they have reached the quota, they don’t need products from the primary sector.

Historical causes of uneven development

- colonisation- in the past, the UK and France had many colonies around the world from which they took people and resources, limiting the progress and development of these colonised countries
- lack of investments in education- many countries can't afford to send all children to school- even at a basic level

• civil war caused destruction and set back development.

• colonial countries (uk, frnace) created countries that ignored tribal, religion, ethics - lead to conflict, holding back economic development (nigeria)