South America: Measures of Economic Development

Use Table G-1 of your textbook, keymaps from your textbook, your Goode's World Atlas and the maps below to get an idea of how South America ranks economically among the world's realms [realmmea.htm].

You may want to review the measures of economic development lecture including the section on the Human Development Index [HDI].

Measures of Economic Development

1. GNP per capita [wbgnpmap] [gnppctab.htm]
2. Population Growth [wrpopgr]
3. Occupational Structure of the Labor Force [wraglab]
4. Urbanization [wrurban]
5. Consumption per capita [wwenergy] [wwtv]
6. Infrastructure [wwtrans]
7. Social Conditions
   • literacy rate [wwlitrt]
   • life expectancy [wwlifexp]
   • health care
   • caloric intake
   • infant mortality [wwinfmrt]
   • other

South America is most often considered part of the developing world [wwldc], but if you look at world maps of GNP per capita [wbgnpmap], urbanization [wrurban], and population growth rates [wrpopgr], you'll see that it is one of the more developed of the less developed realms. Living standards in South America are significantly higher that in Sub-Saharan Africa and most parts of Asia [wwhdi].

Examine maps of some of the other measures of economic development and see if they also display this pattern [wraglab] [wwtrans].

What is the Human Development Index (HDI)?

We have indicated that even though GDP per capita is the most used indicator of development, there are some significant problems with it. Therefore, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) computes a Human Development Index (HDI) for each country each year. The human development index (HDI), composed of three indicators: life expectancy, education (adult literacy and combined secondary and tertiary school enrollment) and real GDP per capita.

To see the Human Development Index for individual countries go to: http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/indicator/indic_10_1_1.html

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