Chapter 19: Measuring Human Development
19.1 How Is Development Measured?
Economic Indicators
Human development: Processes involved in improving people’s freedoms, rights, capabilities, choices, and material conditions.
Ways to measure a population’s wealth:
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Total value of goods and services produced by a country’s citizens and companies within the country in a year.
Gross National Product (GNP): Total value of goods and services produced by a country’s citizens and companies both domestically and internationally in a year.
Gross National Income (GNI): Per capita, the total value of goods and services globally produced by a country in a year divided by the country’s population.
Income distribution within a country provides insight into a society’s overall health.
Economic structure is connected to economic prosperity.
Most diversified economies result from populations who work in every sector.
Development moves workers from the primary sector (agriculture) to the secondary sector (manufacturing), leading to greater productivity.
More development increases jobs in the tertiary sector (services), increasing economic prosperity.
Quaternary and quinary sectors (knowledge sectors) increase as economies flourish.
The structure of an economy can be broken into two categories:
Formal sector: Economic activities that have government supervision and are taxed.
Informal sector: Economic activities outside of government monitoring or regulation, not taxed.
Difficult to measure.
Not included in GDP or GNI.
10–20% of a core country’s income.
Possibly 50% of a peripheral country’s income.
Measuring the use of fossil fuels and renewable energy can indicate a country’s level of development.
Fossil fuels: More than 29 countries depend on fossil fuels for 90+% of energy.
Renewable energy: China is the biggest generator of global wind power and solar energy.
Social Indicators
Total fertility rate (TFR) is higher in peripheral countries.
Improvements in health care, sanitation, and diet and better access to hospitals and medicine lead to a decline in the number of births.
Limited health care and education lead to an increase in fertility rates.
Infant mortality rate (IMR) is higher in peripheral countries.
IMR is a good indicator of maternal and infant health and quality of health care.
High IMRs are connected to higher percentages of people living in poverty.
Life expectancy is a dependable measure of a country’s standard of living.
Related to access to comprehensive, quality health care.
Higher literacy rates are associated with greater economic development.
Human Development Index (HDI)
The United Nations uses the HDI to determine countries’ overall levels of development.
The HDI incorporates 3 dimensions of human development:
Health: Life expectancy at birth.
Education: Access to education measured in expected and mean years of schooling.
Economic: Standard of living measured by GNI per capita.
Limitations of HDI:
Simplified calculation that doesn’t capture every aspect of human development.
Does not reflect other quality-of-life factors, such as poverty, gender equality, environmental quality, sustainability, or an overall feeling of security.
Does not take into account the fact that some minorities may not have equal access to opportunities for income, education, or health care.
Does not consider political dimensions.
19.2 Measuring Gender Inequality
Gender Disparities
Parity is balance between two groups.
Equality is the same level of resources and opportunities for everyone.
Equity is making sure everyone is treated fairly in all circumstances, according to their needs.
The lack of access to opportunities and resources affects underserved people, groups, or communities differently.
Assuring equity means providing additional aid to make sure everyone is treated fairly.
The level of gender equality can be a measure of a country’s level of development.
The United Nations uses 2 measures to track gender inequality:
Gender Development Index (GDI): Calculates gender disparity in health, knowledge, and standard of living.
Gender Inequality Index (GII): Calculates inequality based on reproductive health, empowerment, and labor-market participation.
The GII uses 2 measures of reproductive health as indicators of gender inequality:
Maternal mortality ratio (MMR): Maternal deaths related to childbirth.
Adolescent birth rate (ADR): Births among adolescent mothers.
Early childbearing is associated with increased health risks, as well as less educational achievement for women.
Women’s empowerment includes women’s options and access to participate fully in social and economic spheres.
The GII uses 2 indicators to measure women’s empowerment: political representation and educational attainment.
Labor-market participation (LMP) measures an economy’s active labor force.
LMP is calculated by taking the sum of all employed workers and dividing that number by the working-age population.
A high LMP does not always mean that a country is highly developed economically.
Rates of LMP vary between genders in many countries.
19.3 Changing Roles of Women
Evolving Opportunities
Traditional gender roles:
The man is the breadwinner and head of household.
The woman is the primary caretaker in the home.
As countries have become more economically developed, the disparity in gender roles has diminished.
Rural and urban opportunities for women:
In some rural areas, women are working outside the home or starting businesses, bringing more money into the household.
Urban areas may offer greater opportunities for employment, but women face challenges due to traditional attitudes toward women’s roles.
Opportunities for women in peripheral countries are increasing with industrialization.
Although roles for women are expanding in many countries, higher-level management positions are still mostly held by men.
Exposure to educational opportunities for women leads to greater gender parity.
In many places, girls’ ability to attend school is threatened by social norms and economic challenges.
Despite expanding opportunities for women, the wage gap between genders still exists.
Microloans: Small short-term loans with low interest.
Range in size from to .
Help women start small businesses.
4 key strategies to help girls and women (identified by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development):
Ensure that financial assets are in the hands of women.
Keep girls in school.
Improve reproductive health and access to family planning.
Support women’s leadership.
19.4 Theories of Development
Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth
Rostow developed the stages of economic growth model in the 1960s.
Stage 1: Traditional Society
Political power is local, regional, or based on land ownership.
Family plays a dominant role.
The economy revolves around subsistence farming.
Modern science and technology are nonexistent.
Stage 2: Preconditions for Takeoff
New types of enterprises emerge with long-term goals.
Investment increases and output rises.
Infrastructure improves.
The workforce shifts from agriculture to manufacturing.
Stage 3: Takeoff
Political, social, and institutional frameworks in society change.
Urbanization increases, infrastructure improves, and production capacity surges.
Technology advances.
Stage 4: Drive to Maturity
Growth is self-sustained.
Increased income leads to shifts in consumption patterns.
Entrepreneurial leadership moves from individual industrialists to a managerial bureaucracy.
Stage 5: High Mass Consumption
Urban modern societies are centered on wage labor and organized into states.
Production shifts from industrial manufacturing to consumer goods and services.
Trade expands.
Rostow believed each country could be categorized in one of these stages.
Limitations:
The model is based on the United States and Europe.
Stages of growth in some countries differ by region.
The model does not take into account geographic influences and challenges.
The stages don’t allow for Earth’s carrying capacity and ecological limits.
The model doesn’t consider how countries influence one another and how these influences affect the progression of development.
Wallerstein’s World System Theory
Developed in 1974 in response to Rostow’s stages of development.
States that countries are dependent on one another and do not develop in isolation.
Some countries dominate; some countries are exploited.
Three-tiered structure: core, periphery, and semi-periphery.
Limitations:
The model is too focused on economics.
It does not take into account other measures of integration or dominance, such as cultural influence.
The model may be useful for historical analysis but may not be the best measure of modern development.
Wallerstein states that countries can change their status but gives no explanation of how this happens.
Dependency Theory
Dependency theory describes the development challenges and limitations faced by poorer countries and the political and economic relationships poorer countries have with richer countries.
Peripheral countries offer cheap labor and raw materials.
Core countries use these to produce goods and sell them at high prices.
Peripheral countries have a demand for these goods, so they buy them at the high prices, which depletes funds they might otherwise have available to upgrade their own production structures.
As a result, the needs of the core keep the periphery in a state of underdevelopment.
Limitations:
Critical terms such as dependence and underdevelopment are not clearly defined.
There is no standard to distinguish between dependent and nondependent countries.
The theory does not take into account other factors that cause underdevelopment, including leaders making bad decisions.
Commodity dependence: When 60%+ of a country’s exports and economic health are tied to one or two resources (such as oil, timber, or crops).
Traps countries in neocolonial economic relationships.
Leaves countries at the mercy of rises and falls in commodity pricing.
Connected with poverty and financial turmoil.
Creates extreme interest in who controls the commodity.
May result in political instability as governments and political factions clash.
Negative impact on a country’s development.