AP Human Geography - Modules 54 and 55

What are the 5 economic sectors of jobs?

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Quaternary, and Quinary

Primary economic sector (extractive sector)

extraction of raw materials and natural resources from the earth’s surface (ex. mining, fishing, agriculture, forestry, etc.)

Secondary economic sector

Processing and manufacturing raw materials into a finished product (ex. Factories, manufacturing)

Tertiary economic sector

Service sector that focuses on moving, selling, and trading products in primary and secondary sectors. (ex. retail, marketing, deign, restaurants, shipping, doctors)

What are the 2 subtypes of the tertiary economic sector?

Quaternary and Quinary

Quaternary economic sector

knowledge based sector, focusing on research and information creation and transfer (ex. investment, banking, real estate, college professors, education, software developers)

Quinary econpomic sector

Highest levels of decision making, which includes top officials in government and business (ex. Congress, CEOs, decisions impact millions)

What are the types of developed countries?

Core, Semiperipheral, and Peripheral

Core Countries

Rich countries with strong economies and advanced technological infrastructure, often dominating global trade and politics. Their main economic job sector is in the tertiary sector. (ex. United States, Canada, India, etc.)

Semiperipheral Countries

Countries with moderate wealth and economies, often acting as a buffer between core and peripheral countries. They experience both industrialization and ongoing economic development. The main economic sector jobs they have is secondary. (ex. Brazil, South Africa, Mexico).

Peripheral Countries

Countries with low wealth and economies (poor), typically reliant on agriculture and natural resource extraction. They often face challenges such as political instability and lack of infrastructure. Most of the jobs there are in the primary economic sector.(ex. Haiti, Afghanistan, Madagascar).

Renewable resources

Natural resources that are replenished at the same rate or faster than the rate of consumption. (sunlight, wind, water)

Nonrenewable Resources

Natural resources that are consumed faster than they can be formed/ replenished (coal, timber)

What are the 2 types of industries in the secondary sector?

Light and Heavy

Light industry

Manufacturing industries that typically produce small consumer goods, often requiring less capital and labor than heavy industries. Examples include textiles, food processing, and electronics.

Heavy industry

Manufacturing industries that produce large goods, often requiring significant capital and labor, such as steel and machinery.

What are the 3 subtypes of tertiary?

transportation/communication services, producer services, and consumer services.

Base industry

an industry of disproportionate economic importance and on whose existence other industries and employment sectors depend, typically providing necessary materials or services that drive regional economic activity.

What factors decide where a particular factory/business will be located?

energy, materials, labor, markets, and transportation.

Energy

needs a reliable source of energy at the lowest possible cost. If electricity is the main source of power, then we might expect a factory to locate near hydroelectric sources, which typically produce low-cost electricity.

Materials

a ready supply of materials is important to the location of industry. Proximity to major seaports and airports is also a key consideration. These ports often serve as break-of-bulk points

Break-of-Bulk point

a location where bulk cargo — large quantities of unpackaged goods, such as iron ore, vegetal oils, or grain — is transferred from one mode of transportation to another to maximize efficiency in distribution and minimize transportation costs.

Why are Break-of-Bulk points important?

Loading and unloading materials can be expensive. If manufacturing is located near a break-of-bulk point, transfer costs are lowered.

Labor

Labor costs are often a key component of overall production costs. Therefore, many companies seek to locate in areas with few unions and relatively low wages. Often, companies can pay low wages in a peripheral area with low education levels and high rates of unemployment.

When do people offer higher wages for labor?

When they need workers with a specific skill set.

Markets

Delivery of goods to markets is technically a postproduction cost, but it still affects overall costs and business profits. As a general rule, manufacturing is located near its consumer base, whether those consumers are other firms or individual people. That choice of location minimizes the costs of transporting goods from the factory to consumers.

Transportation

transportation costs and availability are important considerations. Transportation access. is crucial for businesses as it affects both production efficiency and delivery times.

Shipping Containers

standardized, stackable, intermodal (that is, they can be used with different transport modes) metal boxes used to transport goods by ship, railroad, or truck.

Containerization

the system of intermodal freight transport using shipping containers, is a simple technology that altered the logic of manufacturing location. It allowed firms to move manufacturing to peripheral economies, helping to give rise to the semiperiphery.

What is Alfred Weber’s theory about manufacturing locations?

least-cost theory

Least cost theory

Using the location triangle, Weber concluded that transportation cost was the key to location choosing.

What are the limitations of least cost theory?

the model is an abstraction that does not represent real-world conditions. Second, it assumes that decision makers have perfect knowledge of all possible factors, which, again, is not the case in the real world. Finally, transportation costs, while significant, are less important today than other production costs, such as labor, especially for high-skilled manufacturing and services.

What were Rostow’s stages of economic growth?

Traditional Society, Transitional stage, Take off, Drive to Maturity, High mass consumption

Traditional Society

Farming, and little technology (old school)

Transitional Stage

modern improvements in farming, trade, and transport

Take-off

A period of rapid industrial growth, where manufacturing becomes central to the economy, leading to increased investment and urbanization.

Drive to Maturity

The stage where an economy diversifies and industrializes, leading to sustained growth and innovation.

High Mass Consumption

The final stage of economic development characterized by a shift towards service-based industries and increased consumer spending, resulting in a high standard of living. More jobs in tertiary

Why are Rostow’s stages criticized?

it suggests that countries and regions proceed along the development path in isolation from one another. But, as we’ve seen, different countries and their economies are not independent, but interlinked in complex ways.

Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory

an analytical framework that divides the world into core, semi-periphery, and periphery nations, explaining the economic and political relationships between them.

Differences between Rostow’s and Wallertsteins theories

Unlike Rostow’s model, world systems theory suggests that countries do not inevitably march through a set of development stages. Rather, over time, regions have been incorporated into the world economy through imperialism and colonialism, creating interdependent but unequal relationships among them.

Why was Wallerstein’s theory criticized?

due to its global scale of analysis. As a sweeping, centuries-spanning explanation of the world economy, it necessarily glosses over the complexities of development at regional and local scales. Thus, world systems theory is most useful at a global scale and less useful at subregional and subnational scales.

Dependency Theory

Dependency theory focuses on relations between the core and the periphery. Dependency theorists believed that the cause of persistent poverty lies not with peripheral countries but with the exploitative core regions. The periphery was poor because it was economically dependent on the core in a disadvantageous relationship originally established under colonialism and imperialism.

According to the Dependency Theory what is the solution to peripheral countries?

to “delink” the periphery from exploitative trade relationships with the core.

Why was the Dependency Theory criticized?

paying too little attention to the social and cultural variations within the periphery and core that might help to explain spatial patterns of uneven development. Also, delinking is increasingly unrealistic in a world economy becoming ever more complex and interdependent.

What are raw materials also called?

Commodities

Commodity

a primary agricultural product or raw material that is bought, sold, and traded.

Commodity Dependence

occurs when commodities account for more than 60 percent of the value of a country’s total exports. This is linked to underdevelopment.

Gross National Product (GNP)

measures the total value of all the goods and services made by a country’s residents and businesses in a specific time period regardless of the location in which they were made. For example, if you are a citizen of Canada who owns a business in France, the value of what you produce in France counts toward Canada’s GNP, not France’s. Conversely, GNP does not count value produced within a country by foreign residents or businesses.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

the value of all goods and services produced in a country over a specific period, regardless of the producer’s national origin. while GNP extends beyond a country’s territorial boundaries to include overseas investments and activities, GDP is confined to the value produced only within a country’s boundaries

Is GDP or GNP better for measuring economic health?

GDP

Gross National Income (GNI)

the total income of a country’s residents and businesses, including investment income, regardless of where it was earned, as well as money received from abroad, such as direct foreign investment and development aid. In other words, it measures total income rather than the total value of goods and services produced.

Which one is better, GDP or GNI?

GNI

What is GDP per capita?

a country’s GDP divided by its total population. provides one way of comparing how wealthy or poor the “average” person there might be.

What is the problem with GDP and GNP?

They don’t take into account the different currencies

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

measures how much a common “basket of goods” costs locally in the currency of each country being compared. PPP begins with a set of commonly purchased goods and services (the “basket of goods”) and then uses currency exchange rates to compare the price of that basket in different locations

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

a statistical measure of gender inequality that combines data on reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation to assess the disparities between genders in a given country. It reflects the extent of gender-based discrimination and its impact on women's opportunities.

What are the limitations of GII

It may overlook cultural factors, economic conditions, and regional disparities that influence gender inequality. Additionally, it may not fully capture the nuances of gender experiences across different societies.

Human Development Index (HDI)

a tool to measure the non-economic aspects of human life. statistical measure of human achievement that combines data on life expectancy at birth, education levels (to gauge literacy rates), and GNI per capita (PPP). HDI helps us evaluate how much of a country’s wealth is directed toward individual human achievement and well-being.

What are the negatives of HDI

HDI oversimplifies complex human development issues, neglects factors like inequality, and fails to account for environmental sustainability and subjective well-being.

Informal Economic Sector

is the part of any economy that is not officially recorded, monitored, or taxed by the government

Formal economic sector

the part of the economy that is officially recorded with the government.

Income distribution

refers to how a country’s total GDP is distributed among the individuals in its population. This is one way to assess economic inequality within countries.