Why has the range of indicators used to measure development increased in recent years? Asses the usefulness of these indicators in identifying patterns of world development.
GG4: Inequalities in Development Miss Jones
Essay:
Why has the range of indicators used to measure development increased in recent years? Asses the usefulness of these indicators in identifying patterns of world development.
Essentially the ideology of development was based on a countries GNP this was down to Rostow’s Model; therefore the only indicator of development was a countries economy. The ideologies have changed and now there are a range of indicators that are used to classify a countries development such as social, demographic, hence including quality of life this gives the ideology of development a more multi dimensional view thus a better understand of what a developed country is.
There are three categories that are used to measure development they are economic, social and demographic. Some economic factors used to measure development are GNP, Infrastructure and energy consumption. GNP has always traditionally defined a countries development, with GNP giving an average wealth of the total population it is clear why it was considered the only factor in measuring development but there is huge flaws in measuring development sole on the economy of a country for example rich middle east oil producing countries may have a large GNP but most of the money within that country is dived by the very wealthy and the poverty stricken. Other limitations in using GNP is that it needs to measure by a currency and with currencies always changing figures can become less accurate. Also in LEDC’s figures are less accurate and a lot of business is done within the informal sector thus leaving GNP figures very unreliable. It also does not take into account the cost of living is different depending on countries for example 10 dollars in and LEDC will buy a person a lot more than what it would buy you in America. GNP’s frequent use suggest that development is only based on a countries wealth, where as this not true because development is multi dimensional process. The other economic factors such as better transport link and energy consumption tie in well with GNP and make using a countries economy more useful in considering if a country is developed or not.
