Concepts of Human Development (Edexcel A Level Geography)

Relationship Between Economic & Social Development

• Development is the process of growth, or changing from one condition to another (hopefully for the better)

• Since the 1980s, countries across the world have made progress in health, family size and life expectancy

• However, there remains great inequality between countries e.g. Malawi and South Korea

Comparison of health indicators

A traditional economic development indicator

• Traditionally, the growth of Gross Domestic Product(GDP) is used to measure progress:

  • GDP per capita is the monetary value of all goods and services produced by a country every year, divided by the population

  •  A high GDP per capita suggests a high-earning population and productive workforce, which aids advances in health and life expectancy

  • However, it is a crude average and masks the income gap between the rich and the poor

  • It doesn’t consider the informal economy e.g. 94% of Uganda’s population work in untaxed jobs

Using social development indicators

•  There is more to development than economic growth

•  Development should consider:

  • The advancement of human well-being

  • The sustainability of the planet

•  Social development considers social measures, including:

  • Health (life expectancy, death rate, infant mortality)

  •  Education (literacy rate, number of schooling years)

•  Measuring human development is complex, requiring more composite measures (using more than one indicator)

The Happy Planet Index

•  Happy Planet Index (HPI) – a composite measure of sustainable well-being

•   It doesn’t include economic development indicators / wealth

•  Scored between 0-100. The higher the number, the better the level of sustainable human development

                          HPI =   

•  Experienced well-being – how satisfied people are with their lives (Gallup World Poll)

•  Life expectancy - how long people on average live for (UN)

• Ecological footprint per capita – the amount of land needed to sustain the country’s resource consumption (World Wildlife Fund)

A sample of national HPI values (2019)

• Costa Rica has frequently placed in 1st position, outdoing countries considered to be more developed

• USA placed 122nd in the overall list, below many poverty-stricken countries eg. Haiti

• The countries with the lowest HPI score are also considered amongst the least developed countries globally

•  Criticisms of the HPI:

  • Well-being is highly subjective

  • Ecological footprints of the least developed countries could be lower as its citizens can’t afford to buy lots of material objects

Contesting the more traditional western approaches to measuring development

• There are some governments who do not wish to adopt Western approaches to measuring development

• They adopt alternative approaches

• Sharia Law focuses on the importance of human welfare

• This is a legal system which controls aspects of life within Muslim countries, such as Qatar, the UEA and Yemen

• Bolivia shows the importance of intervention by the national government 

• Despite significant improvements Bolivia remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America and over  6% of the population live on less than US$3.20 a day (2020)

Importance of Social Goals of Development

• A prevailing view of development is there’s more to it than just economic indicators

• Hans Rosling (co-founder of Gapminder) felt that future goals must improve on: 

  • Environmental quality e.g. air and water quality

  • The health and life expectancy of the poorest

  • Human rights (ie. rights for women)

• He believed these goals could be achieved through economic growth, with a good and stable government

• Through economic growth, governments can invest in healthcare and education

•  Rosling also stressed that achieving the three goals empowers people to become more economically successful, driving economic growth forward

• Improvements in environmental quality are seen as being vital to the well-being of both the physical world and its inhabitants

• However, economic growth is frequently based on the exploitation of natural resources, which can cause detrimental impacts on the environment 

Importance of Education

Education aids development

• Investing in education creates a literate and skilled workforce, which is crucial for countries wanting to economically develop

• If countries invest in education and health:

  •  It increases the value of human capital (the economic, political, cultural and social skills within a country)

  •  Enables more people to participate effectively in society

• This facilitates more economic and social development: 

  • better job 

  • higher wages 

  • more disposable income

  • increased quality of life

Education on human rights

•  Human rights are the rights people are entitled to simply for being human

  • These basic rights (protected by law) are based on shared values and include:

    • Dignity

    • Fairness

    • Equality

    • Respect

    • Independence

•  Education is the key to knowing and asserting your human rights

•  Education enables a longer life as it enlightens people about:

  • Personal health

  • Hygiene

  • Diet

• Part of the UN’s International Bill of Human Rights, signed by 163 countries, recognises the right to free primary education

  • The number of children attending school worldwide has improved

  • UNESCO estimates education is inaccessible to 60 million primary aged children

  • This mainly impacts children in Sub-Saharan Africa 

(Note - Total enrolment in primary education as a percentage of the population of official primary education age. The gross enrolment ratio may be greater than 100% due to early and late school entrance)

• Barriers to education include:

  • Gender discrimination - there are 129 million girls worldwide without access to education; possible reasons are early marriage, pregnancy, religion

  • Extremism - Extreme religious groups often prevent children, especially females, from accessing education, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan

  • Cultural identity - some cultures state that the sexes should be separated where possible, so a lack of female teachers means less education for girls

  • Poverty - some families prevent their children from attending school, instead sending them to work from an early age

• The case of Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, illustrates the ignorance and violence that prevents females from exercising their right to education in Pakistan

• Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt to stop her campaign over the right of girls to be educated

• In much of Africa and South Asia, the female literacy rate is more than a quarter below that for males