Paper 1: Development Dynamics - Topic 2 Flashcards
What is Development?
Development is the economic, social, and political progress a country or people make. For it to be beneficial, it must be sustainable (long-term) and experienced by many people across the country.
What are the Economic Development Indicators
- GDP: The total value of goods and services a country peoduces each year. It is measured in $US per year
- GDP per capita: Dividing GDP by population gives GDP per capita. GDP is measured in PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) which shows what it will buy in each country. Low-income countries usually have low prices, so $1 will buy more there than in the UK
- Poverty Line: The minimum income eequired to meet someone’s basic needs - the World Bank uses $1.25 per person, per day
- Measure of Inequality: These show how equally wealth is shared among the population. It includes the percentage of GDP owned by the wealthiest 10% of the population, and by the poorest 10%.
What are the Social Development Indicators
- Life Expectancy: How long people are expected to live for throughout their lives
- Access to safe drinking water: The percentage of the population with access to an improved (piped) water supply within 1km
- Literacy Rate: The pecentage of the population, aged over 15, who can read and write
-Human Development Index: A score between 0-1 that includes a country’s health, wealth and education (life expectancy, GDP per person, literacy rate)
A score of 1 is the best.
- Gender Inequality Index: A number that is calculated using data showing the staus of women in society. It includes: women’s access to education, jobs, and political rights. The lower the score, the better.
- Inequality Measure: The Gini coefficient measures how equally shared wealth is in a country. It shows inequality in a score between 0 (everyone is equal wealth) and 100 (inequality)
What are the Political Development Indicators
- Corruption Perception Index: A measure if the level of government open ess. A low score (0) is corrupt and a good score (10) means they’re honest
- Voting Uptake: Based on the percentage of people of certain age brackets that go and vote in elections
- Free Speech: How many people are allowed to come out and say what they think, compared to hoe many who are suppressed
What Demographics need to Improve to show Development being made in a country (+ Demography Definition)
Demography - Demography is the study of population
- Population Structure: The percentage of people who are male or female, or in different age brackets
- Demographic Data: All data linked to population changes (birth rate, death rate)
- Birth Rate: Number of live births per 1000 each year
- Death Rate: Number of death per 1000 each year
- Dependancy Ratio: Proportion of people below (under 14) and above (65+) the normal working age. It’s calculated by the equation: (Young + Old Workers / Working Age) x 100. The lower the number, the less depedant which is good
- Fertility Rate: Average number of births per woman
- Infant Mortality: Number of children who die before they are 1 per 1000
- Life Expectancy: Average number of years a person can expect to live
- Maternal Mortality: Number of mother per 100,000 who die in childbirth
How Malawi’s Age Demographics compared to a Developed Countries like the UK’s.
Malawi (2015):
Median age in Malawi = 16.3
- 9% of population is below 14 years old 2.7% of population is above 65 years old
- 2 million (out of a total population of 17mill) are below 14 years. It is the world’s youngest country
UK (2015):
Median age in the UK = 40.2
17.3% of population is below 14 years old 17.3% of population is above 65 years old
Growing life expectancy has helped population surge to new record high.
As expected, in a developing country, the median age is far lower than in a developed country. The percentage of U14 year olds is much higher in Malawi, while the percentage of 65+ year olds are much lower. This will be down to the high fertility rates, and lower standards of good quality healthcare and the access to medicines allowing people to live longer.
What factors make up a Developing Population Structure Graph
Developing:
- Wide base: Shows fertility rates are high and there are lots of children per woman
- Curving in at the Sides: Shows a higher death rate
- Narrow Apex: Shows a small number of elderly people, meaning a low life expectancy
- Steep Drop off between the 1st and 2nd Age Category: Shows high Infant Mortality
- Drop off after ages 14 and above: Shows that the Dependancy Ratio is high
What factors make up a Developed Population Structure Graph
- Narrower base: Shows fertility rates are lower as contraception use increases and there are a small number of children per woman
- Curving out at the Sides: Shows a lower death rate
- Larger Apex: Shows a large number of elderly people, meaning a high life expectancy
- Little/No Drop off between the 1st and 2nd Age Category: Shows low Infant Mortality
- Increase (no decrease) after ages 14 and above: Shows that the Dependancy Ratio is low
How does Development vary in terms of Literacy Rate between the UK, India, and Malawi
England, India, and Malawi’s quality of life varies quite a bit, both socially, economically, and politically. In eocial terms, England has the highest literacy rate of 99%, meaning people have the ability to learn, read, write, and communicate while people from India and Malawi will find this harder to do with one another, as their literacy rates are 74.4% and 62.1%, which could possibly hinder their quality of life.
How does Development vary in terms of GDP per capita between the UK, India, and Malawi
Quality of life can be made better or worse by GDP per capita, as the $1060 earned per oerson in Malawi will not allow people much freedom in terms of their disposable income, meaning their life will largely be based around having more basic items with lower chances of a good education. India will have a little more freedom in this aspect, with slightly more income at their disposal with each person earning around $6,700 per year, giving them a slightly better quality of life. Finally, the UK’s $46,659 GDP per capita allows people to have a large disposable income, which they are able to spend on whatever they want, and whatever makes them happy, cosequently leading their quality of life to be much higher.
How does Development vary in terms of Corruption Index between the UK, India, and Malawi
The quality of life will be far better in developed areas like the UK, as they will have a far more transparent government (with a corruption index score of 82) than other emerging countries like India (score of 40), and developing countries like Malawi (31). This means the population will suffer from less corruption in the UK, which gives people better and fairer opportunities to do what they want to do in society, improving their overall chances in life, and consequently, their quality of life.
What factors can lead to Birth and Fertility rates falling
Birth Rates and fertility will fall because the use of contraception will be far more common, and that women will have a greater role in society, and begin to focus and persuea wider array of career paths and opportunities as they are valued greater in a developed society.
What factors can lead to Infant Mortality falling
Infant mortality will fall because healthcare services are improved, meaning babies can survive birth, and with good quality food, water, and vaccination programmes for virus such as measles, young people eill be well protected. This will allow them to live far beyond their early years and well into their child and adulthood.
What factors can lead to Life Expectancy increasing
Life expectancy will increase because the country’s medicall care will have recived improvement, with a larger amount of doctors bieng able to care for more ageing people. In developed countries, patients will be able to recieve operationd and treatments that seem normal to them, but would be lifesaving in other developing countries like Malawi.
What can lead to populations becoming more elderly from youthful
Populations become more elderly from youthful, as improved healthcare will allow for poeple ti live longer, while the number of children per woman will also begin to decrease with more women being able to persue other careers. Also, contraception is used more in developed countries, which lowers the fertility rate, while people in modern society have many taxes and mortgages will leave some people at a point where they can’t affird the financial burden of children, therefore meaning less young people, and more older people (meaning the population age has increased).
What Social Factors are Holding Malawi back?
- Rural isolation. 85% of Malawi’s population is rural. These people are poor and isolated from the towns (and jobs) due to poor transport infrastructure.
- Basic telecommunications. People in the rural areas can’t get to the towns because of poor roads and also poor telephone and internet provision
- Pollution of land and water. Lilongwe, the capital has contaminated water supplies and rapid squatter settlements (slums). These along with air pollution reduce life expectancy and productivity of workers
- Low social investment – corruption has meant little investment in education and health. Malawi’s citizens have not been able to develop their lives
- HIV Prevalence: More spreading of disease will lead to less people working, which will make less money (Social/Economic)
- Very high fertility rate of 5.7 children per women and a growth rate of 2.8%. The population will double in 25 years – how can a Government provide water, food, housing, education for this growing population?
What Environmental Factors are Holding Malawi back?
- Droughts: Leads to people not having enough food to eat, and not enough spare to export and gain money (Environmental/Economic)
- Climate change is making Malawi much drier as evaporation increases from rising temperatures and rain is unpredictable causing food shortages
- Natural Disaster Occurence: Can result in areas and place being left totally destroyed and needing a rebuild (Environmental/Social)
- Landlocked. Malawi has no coastline. It has no port from which to export or import goods. Reaching the coast involves a slow, 800km single track railway
What Economic Factors are Holding Malawi back?
- Trade Deficit: Spending more on Imports than what they are gaining from exports (Economic)
- Malawi always loses money from its trading. Exports primary (raw material) products and imports secondary (manufactured) products
- High Debts: Results in the country more corrupt and not paying money off (Economic)
What Political Factors are Holding Malawi back?
- Malawi was a British Colony. British powers exploited cheaply Malawi’s raw materials and didn’t develop Malawi’s infrastructure or economy
- Malawi is the 121st (out of 168) worst corruption. It’s score is 3.8 out of 10 which is bad! This means a lack of investment to people’s education & health.
- Civil unrest – following anti-government protests, Britain halted all aid to Malawi, accusing the government of mishandling the economy and failing to invest in people
How has the World Trade evolved over the years
- Until the 1980’s, the flow of trade was either between the world’s developed and developing countries, or between the developed countries themselves.
- Now there is a third type of trade - between developing countries like Malawi and the emerging economies of India and China. China now buys food and raw materials from African countries, and Chinese goods are exported to developing economies of Africa and Latin America.
How did Colonisation affect Malawi
In the 19th century, the British colonised Malawi. They developed plants to grow coffee and tea for expoet. Plantations still remain in British ownership, some by large TNCs (like Unilever, producing PG tips tea). These plabations hire local landless labourers, or subsistances farmer ane pay them very low in wages (around 1p per kg), but do get housing, water and daily lunch.
What are the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and What do they do?
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a global organisation which aims to make trade easier. It tries to help developing countries trade with wealthier countries so they can increase wealth, jobs, and investment. It also aims to get countries to agree that goods will be free of duties, or tariffs, which are added on to the proce of goods, making the, more expensive.
However, it doesn’t always work. Malawi esports raw coffee beans, instead of roasting them which would get a higher price. The reason that the EU and USA charge tariffs of 7.5% on imported roasted coffee beans, but nothing on raw beans. It’s cheaper for companies here to rost beans themeselves than to buy them ready-roasted with the added on price from Malawi
How does Increased Pollution affect Malawi
Economic growth has lead to rapid urban growth in Malawi since 2010, especially in the capital Lilongwe. There, the water supplies have become contaminated during the rainy season. The cause is surface run-off from the built up areas. Squatter settlements have griwn rapidly, with no sanitation or waste management. Rivers and local dama have become contaminated with waste and bacteria, which can lead to death.
Air pollution is also increasing, as dust, industrial smoke, and car fumes have reduced air quality. Traffic congestion has increased carbin monoxide and carbon dioxide pollution. Smoke ans haze in rural areas have increased, caused by bush fires, tyre burning, and forest clearance for agriculture.
How does Climate Change affect Malawi
Climate change affects countries in Africa more than anywhere else in the world. It causes:
- Water shortages as temperatures rise (increasing evaporation)
- Food shortages caused by variable rainfall and increased drought
Rainfall in Malawi has beenmuch lower since 2000, compared to before and the rainy season (November - April) has been shorter. This has lead to river drying up, and crop yields falling, however, when rain has come it has been extreme and intense which floods crops and destroys homes.