25 September
HDI Assignment
Development is the process by which a country improves its standards of living over time, and what a country does to enhance the lives of its population. Several Indicators are used to measure Development across Economic, Environmental and Social indicators. Economic Indicators include GDP per Capita, and as the Economy grows, so do jobs and development. Social Indicators include access to clean water. Indicators also rise with each other, as shown in Figure A below, where the UK’s Life Expectancy Grows at the same time as its GDP per Capita grows. Also, different countries in the same region develop at a relatively similar rate, such as the example in Figure B, where France and Britain’s life expectancy and GDP per Capita rise at a similar steady rate. All in all, Development is the ability of a country’s people to live happy, long, healthy lives; it is not just a country’s income.
In the study of Development, Geographers also study patterns in Countries’ Development. The major pattern found is the North-South Divide. Although there are anomalies such as Australia, countries in the north are generally more developed than countries in the south.
The HDI (Human Development Index) was a new way of measuring Development. Created in 1990, it was invented for the sole purpose of putting people’s lives at the centre of the study of development of the world. It combines several indicators together to form an summarised idea of a country’s development, hiding extremes and creating a single figure for simple comparison, reflecting heavily on the quality of the world’s people, not just on income; GDP per Capita was the generally used figure at the time. Another problem with using income is that income can be used for things like gangs and military, the same income could also be used for medicine and schools. But the HDI, due to its focus on things like life expectancy, ensures that its relations to income show only the good uses of income and not the bad uses, like GDP per Capita could have done. It ranks every country based on three basic human needs: Health, Education, and Income. Figures are between 0 and 1. Using a single indicator only shows one aspect of development, which is a problem because, for example, GDP per Capita can be inaccurate as a Country may have very poor people in Absolute Poverty as well as very, very rich people. GDP per Capita also concentrated on things that did not make up the whole idea of development: goods, income and trade. It doesn’t show the quality of human lives in said country. This causes inaccuracies when using such a figure as a single indicator of Development. A composite indicator such as the HDI gives a much more balanced idea of development. However, one problem with it is that it takes each country in general; however, certain countries can have very different levels of development within it in several areas or ethnic groups. Another problem is that it isn’t gender specific. In certain countries, women might have a much worse Standard of Living than the men in the same country.
