Using the measures together to describe global contrasts

Overview

Why no single indicator will do, what a scatter of income against life expectancy shows and why anomalies occur, and whether the gap is widening or narrowing.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Why should you never judge a country's development on a single indicator?

   Model answer

   Because each indicator captures one dimension and each has a blind spot. Income says nothing about how it is shared or about health and schooling; infant mortality says nothing about adults or incomes; literacy responds slowly and is crudely defined; even a composite index averages away inequality. A country can look developed on one measure and undeveloped on another, and that contrast is often the most revealing thing about it. Using an economic, a social and a composite measure together, and checking the distribution behind each, gives a far more secure judgement.

2. 2

   What would a scatter graph of GNI per capita against life expectancy look like, and what does its shape tell you?

   Model answer

   The horizontal axis would show GNI per capita at PPP in US dollars, usually on a logarithmic scale, and the vertical axis life expectancy at birth in years, with each point representing one country. The pattern is a strong positive but curvilinear relationship: at low incomes life expectancy rises very steeply, so a small increase in income is associated with several extra years of life, but above roughly middle-income levels the curve flattens and further income adds little. The shape demonstrates diminishing returns to income, which is exactly why the HDI enters income logarithmically. Points lying well above the curve are countries converting modest income into long life unusually well; points well below it are the opposite.

3. 3

   What is an anomaly on a development graph, and why do anomalies occur?

   Model answer

   An anomaly is a country lying well away from the general trend, for example one with far higher life expectancy than its income predicts, or far lower. They occur because income is only one influence on welfare. Countries above the trend usually have sustained public investment in health, water and education, or a more equal income distribution. Countries below it typically have high inequality, income concentrated in a resource enclave, conflict, a heavy disease burden or spending priorities elsewhere. Anomalies matter because they are evidence that policy, not just wealth, determines development outcomes.

4. 4

   Describe the broad global pattern of development shown by a measure such as the HDI.

   Model answer

   Values are highest, above about 0.9, across western and northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. They are lowest, below about 0.55 and in the worst cases below 0.40, across much of sub-Saharan Africa, especially the Sahel and conflict-affected states, and in a few countries of South Asia. Intermediate values cover Latin America, north Africa, the Middle East, much of Asia including China and India, and eastern Europe. On a world map shaded by HDI the pattern appears broadly as a wealthy northern belt with southern outliers in Australasia, and a low-scoring band across central Africa, but the middle category is by far the largest and is where most of the world's population lives.

5. 5

   Why does the idea of a simple North-South divide only roughly describe the global pattern?

   Model answer

   Because it is a two-way split of a continuous spectrum drawn along a line that is not really geographical. Australia and New Zealand are prosperous and in the far south. Several Asian economies once placed in the South now have social indicators matching MEDCs. Oil exporters have high incomes with mixed social outcomes. Parts of eastern Europe sit between the categories. And the widest contrasts are increasingly within countries rather than between the two blocs. The divide remains a useful teaching shorthand for the broad pattern, but the exceptions are numerous enough to matter.

6. 6

   How can a single country contain very wide internal contrasts in development?

   Model answer

   Almost every large country does. A wealthy core region, usually the capital and the main port or industrial cities, concentrates investment, jobs, universities and hospitals, while a remote rural periphery has poorer infrastructure, lower incomes, weaker schools and higher infant mortality. Within cities, formal districts sit next to informal settlements lacking piped water and sanitation. Contrasts also run along lines of gender, ethnicity and caste. In the largest emerging economies the difference between the best and worst provinces can exceed the difference between countries, which is why national figures should always be treated as summaries.

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