Measuring Disparities in Development

Quantitative v Qualitative Qualitative  Written, oral or visual descriptions or accounts…  of people’s experiences or perceptions  Usually collected in interviews or open-ended surveys  eg “what is your opinion / how do you feel”…

Quantitative v Qualitative Qualitative  Can help us to see the “people behind the statistics”  The reasons why things happen  eg a 11 yr old child worker in the Philippines said “I have to work every night to help feed our family. I often feel sleepy in class and don’t understand the lessons, so I fail”

Quantitative v Qualitative Qualitative  Sometimes referred to as Subjective  eg the government of Bhutan wants to improve its level of Gross National Happiness  How happy are you? Do you feel happier if you miss school? Will that make you happier in the long term?

Quantitative v Qualitative Quantitative  To do with Quantity  Data that can be recorded and presented in numerical terms  eg Sierra Leone had the lowest “under-5 survival rate” in the world in 2005  There are thousands of possibilities!  Dates are VERY important as they go out of date almost immediately

Indicators  Quantitative measures of development are often called INDICATORS  They show or “indicate” the degree of a country’s development in a particular area  They can then be supported or illustrated by Qualitative information eg video, descriptions

Common Indicators  The most common are Economic  They refer to income, production, wealth, expenditure and so on  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) = the total output (goods and services) of an economy ($)  Gross National Product (GNP) = GDP minus the value of goods and services that are exported  Gross National Income (GNI) = GDP plus earnings from other countries

Absolute v Relative  The three Indicators on the previous slide are Absolute measures. They give an actual value eg in US$  Another method is to relate them to something else  eg population = “per capita” (per person)  GNI per capita = GNI / population  eg percent = out of 100, or per thousand  Useful for comparing countries, especially with vastly different populations

Rankings  These are another type of Relative measure  Values are ranked from highest to lowest  This smooths out large gaps, which can sometimes be useful, or other times misleading GNI per capita for all countries starting with "A" CountryGNI per capita (US$)Rank Austria 32,2801 Australia 27,0702 Argentina 3,5803 Algeria 2,2704 Albania 2,1205 Armenia 1,0606 Angola 9307 Afghanistan 2508

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Human Development Index  An Index is a composite measure  Created in 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme  It uses a calculation to combine four indicators into a single value from 0 to 1  Above = High (NZ =0.936)  to = Medium  Below = Low

Human Development Index It combines  Gross Domestic Product  Life Expectancy at Birth  Adult Literacy Rate (how many adults can read and write)  Gross Educational Enrolment Ratio (how many people are enrolled in education compared to those who are not)

Comparing Developed and Developing Countries

Addis Ababa’s children have joined the battle against HIV/AIDS in a unique way: painting street murals to express the gravity of the situation. "We are pleased that our parents are interested in what we are doing. Our objective is to make everybody understand that AIDS is a menace to humanity, particularly Africans."

Comparing Developed and Developing Countries