Yr 12 - Development Revision - Measuring Development

How can we measure development?

The above video is made for UK students but covers a lot of what we need to know when trying to measure development.

You need to be able to explain the advantages (good things) and limitations (things they can't tell you) of the following ways of measuring the development of different countries.

Development Indicator	What it is?	Notes
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
GDP – Gross Domestic Product	The value of output (everything made) produced within a country during a time period.	Reliability of data? How accurate is the data that is collected? Distribution of income? How is the income distributed – does a small proportion of the population earn a high percentage of the income or is income more evenly spread? Quality of life? Can changes in economic growth measure changes in the quality of life
GDP/GNP per head/per capita	Takes account of the size of the population. The figure is the amount each person within a country would have if the wealth was spread evenly.
SOCIAL INDICATORS
Life Expectancy	Is the average lifespan of someone born in that country.	This can be affected by factors such as wars, natural disasters and disease. The higher the life expectancy the more developed the country.
Birth Rate	Measures the number of babies born per thousand people per year.	The higher this is, the less developed a country is supposed to be. The UK has around 13 babies born per year for every 1,000 people.
Adult Literacy	- Is the percentage of the adult population able to read and write.	The more people who can read the more developed a country and the better the education available in that country.
Infant Mortality	Measures the number of children who die before they reach the age of one for every thousand live births per year.	The figure of 1000 is used so that countries of vastly different size can be compared. t. It is one way of finding out what is happening within a country.
THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX	The HDI measures a country in three basic dimensions of human development: Life Expectancy, Literacy Rate and GDP per capita.	It gives a measurement up to a total of 1. The nearer the figure is to 1 the more developed a country is! NZ = 0.913