Every country in the world can be classified by their level of development. Each country can be put into a broad category of either developed or developing. In order to determine country’s development geographers must calculate a countries HDI or Human Development Index. This number takes into account three factors: a decent standard of living, a long and healthy life, and access to knowledge. The closer a country is to a 1.0 then the more developed they are. Switzerland for example, has a HDI of 9.13 which is ninth in the world out of the close to 200 countries currently ranked. Switzerland is considered a developed country not only because of their high HDI, but also because of their strong economy, healthy society, and up-to-date technology.
Switzerland can be considered developed because it has a strong economic system. The gross national income per capita is at $82,730. This is the country’s income divided by its total population. Globally Switzerland is ranked second in GNI which means it is categorized as having high income; one of the many marks of a developed country. The GDP or Gross domestic product per capita is $79,052 US dollars which puts Switzerland in the top seven of the International Monetary Fund ranking, World Bank ranking, CIA world Factbook ranking, and United Nations ranking. A high GDP is a major contributor to a how developed a country is because it is the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. Along with high incomes and high product values, Switzerland is ranked the second least risky country for investments. The strong economics of Switzerland make it a developed country that is consistently high in income, investment stability, and product value.
Switzerland...
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... how most of Switzerland’s population has transitioned mostly out of primary jobs and into tertiary level jobs. This transition is part of being a developed country. The technological advances in internet, education, sanitation, and job types chows how Switzerland is a developed country.
Human geographers sometimes have a hard time determining countries development, but when it comes to Switzerland it is fairly clear. Switzerland is a developed country that has all of the attributes you would expect. They have a strong economy with high incomes and product values. Their population can expect to live a long healthy life with plenty of food to spare. Switzerland is advanced in education, technology and jobs which give them developed characteristics. All of these aspects combined with the high HDI of 0.913 leads me to conclude that Switzerland is a developed country.
"World Bank, World Development Indicators-Google Public Data Explorer." Google. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 28 July 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. .
The first reason why Brazil is a wealthy country on a national scale is because it has low national debt! (document B) Secondly, Brazil is a wealthy country because they have one-quarter of the world’s arable land which is great for growing crops! (document B) Lastly, Brazil is a wealthy country because Brazil was marked the eighth highest GDP in the world in 2013! The United States dollar equivalent in trillions in Brazil in 2013 was 2.5 trillion dollars! (document A) GDP stands for “Gross Domestic Product” and is an estimate of the total value of all the goods and services a country produces in a year! As a result, Brazil has many advantages that make it a wealthy country on a national
Every year there is a ‘league table‘ published showing the level of economic growth achieved by each country. The comparison is made using each countries Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. An important factor to look at is the difference between actual and potential economic growth. Actual economic growth increases in real GDP. This increase can occur as result of using previously unemployed resources, or reallocating resources into more productive areas or improving existing resources. Whereas potential economic growth is the productive capacity of the economy. For example, it can be shown by the predicted ability of the country to produce goods and services. This changes when there is an increase in the quantity or quality of the resources. All countries have different ways of achieving this with the resources they have available to them. For this reason it party answers the question of why some countries are richer than others. It is widely thought that the productive capacity of an economy will increase each year largely due to improvements in education and technology. This will obviously differ from country to country. For example, in the UK the quality of fertilizer could be improved, hence forth increase the years fruit and vegetable output.
The Human Development Index rates each country with a score between 0 and 1, with 1 being the most advanced, globalized country. Factors that are involved in determining a country's HDI are gross domestic production per capita, life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, and the number of persons enrolled in educational institutions. In 1975, Peru's Human Development Index was 0.643. By 2003, the Human Development Index had risen more than one tenth to 0.762. The substantial increase in Peru's HDI is a clear indication that globalization has made a positive impact.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the market value of all final goods and services produced by factors of production within a country in a given period of time. It can be calculated using either the income, output, or expenditure method as illustrated on the circular flow of income diagram below.
Brazil, the world’s seventh largest economy by nominal GDP, the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (The World Bank. 2016.), one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, with an average annual GDP growth rate of over 5% (Blankfeld. 2010.). On paper, evaluating based on GDP, Brazil has acquired status that of developed country, surpassing United Kingdom, Sweden, most European
Switzerland is also one the world's most prosperous countries in terms of private income. In 2003 the median household income in Switzerland was an estimated $54,000 (U.S.), 26% higher than the 2003 U.S. median income of $43, 000. They also consistently rank high on quality of life indices such as high concentrations of computer and internet usage per capita, high insurance coverage per individual, and high health care rates.
Switzerland is a small country in Europe of only 30,753 square miles (Presence Switzerland, n.d.) and is divided into 26 cantons, the equivalent of states in the United States. In 2011, the total population in Switzerland was 7,954,662. Of that number, 6,138,668 (77.2%) were Swiss citizens and 1,815,994 (22.8%) were foreign residents. Population density is high due to the relatively small size of the country and the high population. The Swiss have been experiencing low birth rates for years. 1998 was the first year there were more deaths than births.
In 1995 Austria joined the European Union (EU), and in 1999 they joined the European Monetary Union. The use of a common currency the “Euro” has facilitated trade and promoted economic stability for U.S. companies to manage pricing, balance accounts, and move products into Austria and throughout the EU member nations (“globaledge”, 2003). An unfavorable exchange rate for U.S. exporters turned positive in 2003 making the U.S. able to compete on more favorable terms in the near future.
Developing countries like Brazil and India are getting divided into high quality formal and informal areas marked by insecurity and poverty. Due to urbanization in cities, there is a geographical concentration of high income groups in some places and poverty and less income groups in others. Due to uneven geographical distribution of socio economic resources health inequalities also persist resulting in poor people having poorer health. Greater inequality is therefore correlated with health of poorer population.
In international parlance, development encompasses the need and the means by which to provide better life for people in poor countries and it includes not only economic growth, although that is crucial, but also human development like...
There have been discussions among scholars in developed countries regarding economics of information. Developed countries includes Australia, New Zealand, United States, Ireland, Germany, Japan, Canada and many more are countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. The criterion is income per capita; countries with high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita would thus be described as developed countries. Another economic criterion is industrialization; countries in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors of industry dominate would thus be described as developed. More recently another measure, the Human Development Index (HDI), which combines an economic measure, national income, with other measures, indices for life expectancy and education has become prominent. This criterion would define developed countries as those with a very high (HDI) rating.
In fact, poorer people are given many opportunities that they could never obtain in their country of origin. Some people live in really bad conditions; no job, starvation, slavery forced labour, diseases, conflicts… As a result, as reported by NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (2005), this pushes the flow of people to move to countries that offer a better life. Moreover with the globalizing process, people are starting to be aware of what surrounds them, that is, a better life. Thus, migrants are pulled towards developed countries that offer job opportunities, better education, better medical care, good climate, security, more freedom etc. Therefore, “around 60 % of all recorded migrants are now to be found in the developed countries”. (Kül, 2011, part
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines development as the act or process of growing or causing something to grow larger or more advanced. We live in a world that is continuously developing, in ways that we cannot even begin to try to describe. Nonetheless, The World Bank measures indicators of development. To do this, they look at three-hundred and thirty-one different indicators which cover a vast number of areas, including agriculture, aid effectiveness, climate change, economic policy, education, energy and mining, environment, the financial sector, poverty, science and technology, social development, and urban development. The World Bank’s World Development Indicators data is has been used for over fifty years as the standard by which development is measured. While this list may seem like a comprehensive, all-inclusive list, it does not consider the idea of sustainable development. While development for the sake of advancement may seem like a good option for an undeveloped country, it can be argued that development that is not sustainable is not development at all, but merely the illusion of one.
Economic development typically involves improvements in a variety of indicators such as literacy rates, life expectancy, and poverty rates. Due to the fact that GDP alone does not take into account other aspects such as leisure time, environmental quality, freedom, or social justice; alternative measures of economic well-being have been proposed. Essentially, a country’s economic development is related to its human development, which encompasses, among other things, health and education. These factors are, however, closely related to economic growth so that development and growth often go together.