Transcript Living Standards

Living Standards
What is a standard of living?
• A standard of living is a measure that
geographers use to compare, contrast, and rank
nations of the world
• It allows geographers to say that this country
has a high standard of living and is one of the
best places in the world to live
• Conversely, it also allows them to say that
another country has a low standard of living and
is one of worst places in the world to live
How is standard of living
measured?
• A country’s standard of living is measured
according to three criteria:
• Life expectancy
• Literacy rate
• Per capita gross domestic product
Life expectancy
• Life expectancy is the average number of
years that an individual is expected to live
in a particular nation or region
• For example, people born in Canada have
a life expectancy of 81 years
• However, a person born in the African
country of Burkina Faso has a life
expectancy of 56 years
Literacy rates
• Literacy rates are the number of
people who can read and write in a
country per 1000 of population of that
country
Differences in literacy rates
• Literacy rates are high in North America
and Western Europe
• Well over 90% of both men and women
are literate
• This is not true of other parts of the world
– for example, in parts of Asia and Africa,
only about 70% of men and 50% of
women are literate
Gross domestic product (GDP)
• GDP is the total value of all goods and services
produced in a country in one year
• GDP is one way of measuring a country’s wealth
compared to other nations, as well as a growth
rate of an economy
• If you divide the GDP by the number of people in
a country, you get the average GDP per person,
or per capita
• The U.S. has a per capita GDP of $52, 308 while
Liberia has a per capita GDP of $752
United Nations Human
Development Index
• The United Nations was set up after World
War II – it is made up of many of the
world’s nations
• The UN monitors and reports on standards
of living around the world
• Each year, the UN publishes a Human
Development report that ranks the world’s
countries according to life expectancy,
literacy rate, and per capita GDP
Human Development Index
• UN index gives a crude indication of the
different levels of economic and social
development among the countries of the
world
• Once data on life expectancy, literacy
rates, and per capita GDP are collected,
the UN Human Development Index
classifies countries into three broad
categories
Three categories of development
• High human development – countries with low
population growth, but high levels of economic
growth and technological developments
• Medium human development – countries with
growing population, with medium levels of
economic and human development
• Low human development – countries with high
levels of population growth, low levels of
economic and technological development
2014 Human Development Index
rankings
• In the category of High Human
Development, the country that was ranked
#1 in the world was ….
• Norway
• In the category of Low Human
Development, the country that ranked last
in the world (#187) was
• Niger