Why 'development' resists definition

Overview

Why growth is not development, how a national average hides the picture, the value judgement the word carries, and the difference between standard of living and quality of life.

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

   In the broadest sense, what does 'development' mean in geography?

   Model answer

   Development is the process by which a country or region improves the quality of life and well-being of its people. It includes rising material living standards (income, goods, services), but also better health, education, housing, security, rights, political freedom and environmental quality. Because it is judged against what people value, it is much broader than simply becoming richer.

2. 2

   Why is economic growth not the same thing as development?

   Model answer

   Economic growth is an increase in the value of output, measured by GDP or GNI. Development is an improvement in people's welfare. Growth can happen without development if the extra income goes to a small elite, to foreign TNCs which send profits home, or to a single enclave sector such as oil, leaving health, housing and schooling unchanged. Growth can even damage development through pollution, displacement or unsafe working conditions. Equally, welfare can improve with little growth, through immunisation or free primary schooling. Growth is best understood as a means to development, not development itself.

3. 3

   How can a national average hide the real development picture?

   Model answer

   Averages such as GNI per capita divide total income by total population as though it were shared out evenly. They conceal inequality between rich and poor, contrasts between a wealthy urban core and a remote rural periphery, and gaps between social groups such as men and women or different ethnic groups. Two countries with an identical average can therefore be very different places. Only data showing distribution, such as the share of income held by the poorest fifth or a Gini coefficient, or data broken down by region and gender, reveals this.

4. 4

   Why do people say that the idea of development carries a value judgement?

   Model answer

   Calling a country 'developing' implies a direction of travel and an end point, and that end point is usually taken to be the MEDC model: industrial, urban, high-consumption and market-based. That assumes every society should want this, that subsistence and traditional ways of life are backward, and that more consumption is always better. Critics point out that the model is environmentally unsustainable if extended to everyone, and that societies may value things it ignores, such as community, security or spiritual life. An alternative view, which underlies the Human Development Index, is that development means widening the range of choices genuinely open to people, letting them decide themselves what to develop towards.

5. 5

   Distinguish between standard of living and quality of life.

   Model answer

   Standard of living refers to the material goods and services a person can command: income, food, housing, possessions, access to services. It is largely measurable in money. Quality of life is broader and partly subjective, covering health, safety, environmental quality, working conditions, family and community life, freedom and contentment. A person can have a high standard of living and a poor quality of life, for example on a high salary in a polluted, insecure, long-hours city, and the reverse is also possible.

6. 6

   What does 'sustainable development' add to the definition, and why does it complicate it?

   Model answer

   Sustainable development is usually defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It adds a time dimension and an environmental limit: growth achieved by exhausting soils, forests, fisheries or the atmosphere is not development because it borrows from the future. It complicates the definition because it can conflict with raising incomes now, and because it raises the awkward question of whether MEDCs are developed at all if their consumption levels could not be sustained globally.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.