Development - Types and measures

Economic development - An increase in a countries level of wealth.

Demographic development - An increase in the life expectancy and an overall fall in the death rate combined with falling birth rates.

Political development - Freedom means that people have a greater say in who forms the government and therefore the impact that it can have on their lives.

Social development - Can include a range of changes affecting the quality of life of the population.

Cultural development - Greater equality for women and better race relations in multicultural societies.

North South divide

The Brandt Line is an imaginary division that has provided a rough way of dividing all of the countries in the world in to the rich north and poor south.
The Brandt line is now quite out of date, as many countries in the South are more developed now, NICs are not considered and the soviet block has collapsed. As well as this, GNI and GDP form the basis of this measure, and so cultural and social development is not represented.

Measuring development

1. Economic indices

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - this is the value of all goods and services produced within a country.

Cons 

- Doesn't show disparities within countries

- Doesn't take into account black markets

- Can be manipulated by governments

- Ignores relative purchasing power

2. Multivariate analysis

Takes into account more than one measure.

For example the Social Development Index takes into account different variable within health, education and housing.

3. Quality of life indices

e.g. HDI

Takes into account life expectancy, education and GNI per capita.

Calculated by the UN to track growth and problem areas.

Cons

- Politically motivated

- Only 3 indicators

- Hides regional disparities

- Hides social disparities

- Progress is relative not absolute

Alternatives

Gini coefficient

-The Gini coefficient provides an index to measure inequality.

-It is a way of comparing how distribution of income in society compares with a similar society in which everyone earned exactly the same amount. 

-Inequality on the Gini scale is measured between 0, where everybody is equal, and 1, where all the country’s income is earned by a single person.

Less income inequality suggests the country is more developed because if there is large amounts of inequality then economic growth falls. It is a useful measure because it allows direct comparisons of income inequality between different countries and it isn't a measure of the average of the income so it is more representative of a population. It also doesn't matter how large the population of the country is and it can also show the inequality change over time.

However, some might say that it is oversensitive to changes in the middle and undersensitive at the extremes. It is also hard to accurately measure because benefits systems work differently in different countries so it may not be counted as income so with not be taken into account in the Gini coefficient.

Global Peace index

-The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness.

-The index looks at the three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation.

When there is less money circulating and economy this can cause an increase in conflict due to lack of jobs and weak institutions. It is a useful measure because you can easily compare ranks between the countries. 

However, it can be hard to quantify peace so some of the orders may be not what you would expect so this may not reflect the rank of development. For example USA is a developed countries yet it is 101st in the global peace index.