1. The Development Gap

The Development Gap Learning outcomes: you should be able to: · describe the global pattern of differences in development between MEDCs and LEDCs (with general reference to places for illustration purposes only); · use a range of economic and social indicators of development to do this, and evaluate the effectiveness of these indicators: o economic: GNI per captia (Gross National Income per person) o social o composite: HDI (Human Development Index) Key Terms

1.

It’s time to get a bit on the arty side. Imagine you’re in an art gallery, admiring some wonderful pieces of artwork, when you come across this stark image. Being in an art gallery, you’re going to want to make it look like you’re an informed and intelligent art critic, someone who is able to understand the symbolism that the artist used and the message she is wanting to get across. So you begin to discuss the image with the people you’re with, keen to show off your superior art knowledge.

So here we go then. What are the images being used here? What are they meant to represent?

What is this saying about the distribution of wealth across the world?

The question we want to ask is this: to what extent is this a true picture of global development? Are there two main groups: a very rich minority exploiting the world and leaving a very poor majority destitute, begging for help?

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

1.1 What is development?

We’ll begin answering this question with a few thinking exercises. These exercises don’t need to be learnt for the exam, but they will help us to understand the conclusion we’ll draw at the end (which does need to be learnt).

What does this boy need?

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Development is

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

1.2 The pattern of global development So we have seen that, to be developed, people need to have access to a range of things: some economic, some social. When we are studying development of countries across the world and trying to understand the pattern of the development gap, we can also examine a range of economic and social indicators of development.

Learning outcomes: · to understand more fully the various economic and social indicators of development · to build up a picture of the global development gap Resources: · the presentation on the website which contains world maps of a range of economic and social indicators of development · these notes below Task: · work your way through each indicator, reading the notes carefully where appropriate · rank the three continents of the LEDCs in terms of how developed they are.

A. Economic measures

· ·

(i) GNI per capita

GNI is the gross national income the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in one year including income from foreign investments.

Per capita measures are measures ‘per person’.

The GNI pc gives an indication of the average income of people in a country and is one of the most widely used measures of development. It is useful because it is relatively easy to produce and easy to understand. It can be adjusted to reflect how much it costs to buy products in a country (this is called Purchasing Power Parity or PPP). This makes it more directly comparable between countries.

However, there are a few weaknesses with the measure: ·

·

It gives no indication of the spread of wealth within a country. For rich oil producing country in the Middle East with relatively high GNP pc, yet the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small proportion of the population.

Also, it does not reflect the value of all the crops grown and sold within LEDCs, as some may be subsistence crops sold at a local market. These are not included in the value of GNI.

example, Saudi Arabia is a Continent

Position

S. America Asia Africa

Study the map of GNI pc. Rank the continents of the LEDCs from richest to poorest.

(ii) Employment in primary, secondary tertiary industries MEDCs have generally taken the following route as they have developed economically: Primary

à

Primary economic activities extract raw materials from the earth or sea. It includes fishing, forestry and mining.

But mostly it refers to farming. The poorer a country is, the larger the proportion of people working in farming.

Secondary

à

Secondary economic activities manufacture products from raw materials. As a country becomes more developed, its manufacturing sector grows as the farming sector shrinks as people move from the countryside to the towns and cities.

Tertiary

Tertiary economic activities provide a service. They can range from low skilled (e.g. shop assistant) to high skilled (e.g. a brain surgeon). In MEDCs today, most people are employed in the service sector.

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

This means that one of the ways you can measure how economically developed a country is is to look at the proportions of the population employed in primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

Continent

Position

S. America Asia

Study the map of population employed in farming. Rank the continents of the LEDCs from richest to poorest.

Africa

Weakness of this measure The problem with this as a measure is that the service category of jobs is very wide it includes:

LEDCs can therefore have misleadingly high proportions of service sector jobs, but many of them will be informal sector jobs ie low skilled, low paid street-based jobs.

B. Social measures Using economic measures alone only gives a very limited picture of how developed a country is. To paint a wider picture, we need to consider those measures which give an indication of how well a country is doing in terms of promoting the social welfare of its population.

(i) Population indicators Study the next 4 maps and then rank the continents based on what you observe. o

Life expectancy

o

___________________ i.e. births/ ____________

o

___________________ i.e. ________ /________

o

___________________ i.e. __________________________

(ii) Nutrition & health indicators Study the next 2 maps and then rank the continents based on what you observe. o _____________________________________ o

_____________________________________

(iii) Education indicators o

_____________________________________

Continent

Position

S. America Asia Africa

Continent

Position

S. America Asia Africa Continent

Position

S. America Asia Africa

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Summarise the pattern of the global development gap you have observed in your various maps on this single map below. To what extent is the cartoon accurate in showing the development gap?

Mention NICs

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Using triangular graphs Any time you have three components making up one whole, the components can be represented on a triangular graph. These are reasonably common in GCSE exams. They can be a bit daunting at first – but once you’ve understood them, they are quite straightforward to use.

1. (i) Add the following data on employment in different sectors of the economy onto the triangular graph.

Country A B C

% primary 30 54 2

% secondary 25 19 30

% tertiary 45 27 68

Country

(ii) Identify the countries from the following list: UK, Brazil, Nigeria.

Primary

Tertiary Secondary

Percentage employed in primary industry

Note: in recent years, a forth sector has been included, called the quaternary sector. It consists of those industries providing information services, such as computing and ICT, consultancy (offering advice to businesses) and R&D (research and development of new technologies or new products).

As this sector, too, provides services, it is often combined together with the tertiary sector in government statistics.

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

1.3 Evaluating the measures of development Although the measures of development are vital to give us a picture of the global development gap, it is important to note that they have their weaknesses and limitations. For example:

How well is the wealth spread?

When we look at the economic measure of GNI pc, one thing it gives no indication of is the spread of that wealth within a country. Describe the spread of wealth in the UK shown in the graph below.

Accuracy of data The data that the social measures of wealth are based on are often based on census data collected in the various countries of the world. However, this data is not always reliable and accurate.

Range of measures The fact that the above measures just look at one variable at a time is an issue too. For example, in Saudi Arbia is an oil-rich country and so has quite a high GNI pc. You might therefore think it is quite developed.

However, if we look at certain aspects of social development, then the country may not do quite so well.

Take, for instance, the role of women within Saudi Arabia. Due to its strict laws, women are not allowed to drive, nor are they allowed to go out in certain public places on their own When they do go out, they have to wear the Muslim veil. Single women are not allowed in certain parts of restaurants; in fact, they must go into designated ‘family areas’ and may even have to sit in booths behind curtains. And yet, if we just looked at the economic measure of GNI pc, we would not know any of this.

In response to the weakness of using just one measure, indicators that are made up of a number of measures combined together have been developed. These are known as composite measures.

The most famous of these is the Human Development Index (HDI). Because measures like this consider a range of economic and social aspects of development, they can be said to be better measures of quality of life than those that look at a single economic measure, such as GNI pc.

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Human Development Index (Use the text book p151 to help you complete these notes) Print out the colour version of the HDI map from the website and stick it in here.

The HDI is a single figure between ____ and _____ which combines together information about: o o o

It’s main benefit is that it focuses on a range of factors across both economic and social development and so it gives a broader picture of the development of any country.

However, some criticisms have been made of it. These include: o

o

In addition, some have argued that it takes no account of the environmental impacts of development (see the thinking exercise below).

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

So are there any differences between what the HDI shows and the GNI pc shows? If the HDI includes social measures too, does it change the rank order of countries in the world when compared with their rank for GNI pc? Use the following tasks to help you answer these questions.

Study the two graphs which compare the country’s HDI rank with its GDP pc (another term for GNI pc).

‘The HDI is a better measure of development than the GNI pc as it covers a range of economic and social factors.’

Use these graphs to help you evaluate this statement.

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Thinking exercises You don’t have to learn the next few pages in detail for your exam. The purposes of these exercises is, not surprisingly, to get you to think about this topic a bit more. So the goal is not so much to get the ‘right answer’ written down as quickly as possible. Rather, you should use this opportunity to think, to discuss and to try to understand this topic more fully as you complete the following tasks.

1. Read the following statements and complete the task below.

1. birth rate 2. most people in primary activities 3. Asia 4. Europe 5. high life expectancy

6. growing enough food for yourself & your family 7. low GNI 8. natural increase 9. high birth rate

10. low infant mortality 11. MEDCs 12. South America 13. little trade 14. migration

15. large scale commercial farming 16. high GNI 17. death rate 18. high death rate 19. LEDCs 20. Asia

(i) Each of the number sets below relates to the statements above. But one of them is an odd one out. Can you identify which one it is? Also, what is it that connects the other three? Circle the odd one out and complete the table with your answer of the connections.

Set

Numbers

A

14, 17, 1, 8

B

17, 11, 10,

4th statement

Connections

16 C

7, 19, 9, 5

D

2, 15, 13, 6

E

20, 3, 4, 12

(ii) Find one more statement from the list to add to each of the sets above so that four statements have something in common but the odd one out remains the same. Add it to your table. (iii) In the space below, design your own odd one out for your partner and try it out on them.

2. Visit the link on the website to the ranking of HDI for each country of the world. o For each country in the table below, click on the country hyperlink on the website. Scroll down to table 1, which will allow you to get the rank for HDI and GDP per capita 9 (another name for GNI pc). o Record those two ranks for each country. o Once you have completed the table, use Excel to produce a scatter graph for the data. o Add annotation to your graph to describe any patterns you see.

Country UK Russian Federation Germany Sri Lanka China

HDI rank

GNI pc rank

Country Columbia South Africa

HDI rank

GNI pc rank

Botswana Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

3. Study the map which shows the regions of the world resized to reflect the amount of CO2 they emitted during the 20th century.

Divide into two groups. o One group will argue: this map shows that MEDCs are more developed o The other group will argue: this map shows that MEDCs are not more developed In your groups, come up with some reasons inspired by the map to help you win your argument (make notes in the box below). Then we’ll have a go at exchanging our views with each other!

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

4. Some countries in the world do quite well in terms of economic development, but may not perform so well in some other aspects of social development that we consider important in the West, such as gender equality. One often quoted example of this is Saudi Arabia. Study the following resources on Saudi and have a look at the questions which follow.

Read this extract from a blog written by a British man living and working in Saudi Arabia.

My family finally arrived in late August; I picked them up at the airport and gave my wife her abaya I had purchased a few weeks earlier. The abaya is the floor length long sleeve garment that all women in Saudi must wear when out in public. The Muslim women in Saudi must also wear a headscarf, and most of the actual Saudi women wear a veil. Western women were never required to wear a veil, but there were several times when we were downtown and the “Mutawwah”, the religious police, told my wife to cover her head. She would put on her scarf and after the officer had moved down the street she would take it back off.

Life in Saudi is measured mostly by Sharia, or ultra conservative Muslim law, of which the Saudi version includes women not being allowed to drive, wearing the abaya at all times, forbidding all alcohol and virtually all other Western “vices”. There are no theatres, no public bowling alleys, no bars or nightclubs and definitely no churches! All restaurants have two sections; a single males section and a family section. Women downtown by themselves or with other women had to sit in the family section; otherwise they could be arrested for “prostitution”.

Data for Saudi Arabia Measure GNI pc (PPP): HDI: GEM:

World Rank 38 59 106

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is an indicator of opportunities for women. It takes into account the female share of parliamentary representation; proportions of legislators, senior officials, managers, professional and technical employees who are women; and the ratio of female to male earnings.

Saudi Arabia forbids women to eat while publicly exposed. All restaurants, including this Kentucky Fried Chicken, have 'family areas' where women can eat behind the curtains.

Use this information to help you explain why it is important to look at a range of information when trying to decide how well developed a country is.

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department

Unit 2 Theme B: Contrasts in World Development – Lurgan College Geography Department