Health, Human Rights and Interventions Enquiry Question 1 - A Level Geography

Health,
Human Rights
and
Interventions
Enquiry Question 1: What is human development and why do
levels vary from place to place?

, 8A.1 Concepts of human development are complex and contested
How is development measured?
 HDI
 GDP
 GNI
 Access to healthcare
 Life expectancy
 Literary rate
 Access to electricity
 Infant mortality
 Internet access
Traditional Economic Measures
GDP and GNI have long been used to measure development at a national level. However,
development also involves much more than economic progress.
Strength Weakness
 Narrow - only an economic measure
 As it is in $, it is distorted by exchange rate
GD  Always in $, so easy to compare changes
P  Shows economic progress  No account of informal sector income, eg:
shoe cleaning
 No indicator of the distribution of wealth
 Index of 3 measures
 Rank order so a country could develop, but
 1 economic measure (GNI) and 2
HDI show no change in HDI, all relative
social measures (life expectancy and
 No account of the environment
education levels)
 Wellbeing from a 1-10 scale, so very
 Index of 4 measures subjective
 Takes into account the  Too focused on eco-footprint, which is
HPI
environmental impact of a happy dominated by CO2 emissions, eg: USA, long
and long life life expectancy, good wellbeing, very large
eco-footprint, so ranked low for HPI




Wellbeing - how satisfied people feel with overall life, 0-10 Poll