Download Measuring Development Traditional economics uses GDP as the

Measuring Development
Traditional economics uses GDP as the indicator of economic growth- and hence development.
This traditional perspective is too narrow because development is more than just growth and
GDP is purely an economic indicator
The UN has four human development indices:
(1) Human Development Index
(2) Gender-related Development Index,
(3) Gender Empowerment Measure
(4) Human Poverty Index
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is the average of three indicators



Standard of living, as measured by real GDP per capita (PPP$)
Life expectancy at birth, in years
Educational attainment, as measured by a weighted average of adult literacy (two-thirds
weight) and enrolment (primary, secondary and tertiary) ratio (one-third weight)
The closer the HDI is to 1, the closer the country is to achieving the maximum values defined for
each of the three indicators.
According to the UN, in 2007, the 10 countries with the highest HDI were as follows:
Norway (0.971), Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, Holland, Sweden, France, Switzerland and
Japan
By contrast, the countries with the worst HDI in 2007 were:
Niger (0.340), Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Burundi, Guinea Bissau
Hong Kong’s HDI ___________ and China’s____________. (Source:
Human Development Report 2009. United
Nations Development Program (2009). Retrieved on 27/1/10.)
Gender-related development index
The Gender-related development index (GDI) is simply the HDI adjusted downward for gender
inequality. For the vast majority of countries the GDI values are lower than HDI figures
reflecting the obvious inequalities between men and women. For example France: HDI- 0.938,
GDI- 0.935, Kenya: HDI-0.474, GDI- 0.472 & Saudi Arabia HDI- 0.772, GDI -0.749.
Human Poverty Index
The Human Poverty Index (HPI) measures the proportion of people not expected to meet
specified target levels for given economic and quality of life indicators:
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P1 Percentage of people not expected to survive to age 40
P2 Percentage of adults who are illiterate
P3 Percentage of people who fail to attain a 'decent living standard'
P3 is subdivided into two (equally weighted) separate items:
(a) Percentage of people without access to safe water
(b) Percentage of children who are underweight for their age
Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM) measures how women take active part in economic and political life. Differing from the
GDI, it exposes inequality in opportunities in selected areas such as the percentage of women in
leadership, managerial and professional positions.
TASK: Comparing country statistics
The purpose of this exercise is to provide you with recent statistics on a select group of countries.
Some statistics are related to recent topics (Balance of Payments), others to past topics
(macroeconomic indicators) and others are to remind you of the different indicators of
development that can be used to distinguish an EMDC from an ELDC.
Instructions:
1. Go to the following website:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/profileguide.html
2. Using the drop down menu, select each country as indicated in the table below, find the
relevant statistic and complete the table for all the countries
Country
GDP
per Gini Unemploy Current
capita (PPP) Index ment rate account
$
(100) (%)
balance
($)
Externa Populati
l debt on
($)
growth
rate (%)
HIV/AID
S
prevalenc
e rate (%)
Life
expectancy
(Total
population)
U.S.A.
Tanzania
Russia
D.R.Congo
Germany
China
Brazil
Hong Kong
Zimbabwe
India
3. Now open Microsoft Excel and enter the information on to a spreadsheet. It is a good
idea to enter information for one column at a time and then produce a chart/graph for that
particular economic or social indicator.
4. Produce a chart for each indicator like the one shown below. Add a title and label the yaxis.
5. Put all your charts on one word document and print out
6. Add a sentence underneath each graph which explains what each indicator means
Population growth rates (%) of selected countries 2007/08
The population growth rate is a measure of how much the population grew from one period to
another, expressed as a percentage of the original population.