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Section 1 Levels of Development

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Objectives

After studying this section you will be able to:

1. Understand what is meant by developed nations and less developed countries.
2. Identify the tools used to measure levels of development.
3. Describe the characteristics of developed nations and less developed countries.
4. Understand how levels of development are ranked.

Section Focus

Nations throughout the world exhibit varying levels of economic well-being. Many tools are used to measure a nation's level of development.

Key Terms

• development
• developed nation
• less developed country
• per capita gross domestic product (per capita GDP)
• industrialization
• subsistence agriculture
• literacy rate
• life expectancy
• infant mortality rate
• infrastructure
• newly industrialized country (NIC)

Three billion people—half the world's population—live in extreme poverty. The United Nations estimates that 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day. Concern over these startling statistics has led to close examination of the world's economies.

Social scientists measure the economic well-being of a nation in terms of its level of development. Development is the process by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people.

Developed Nations and Less Developed Countries

Some nations enjoy a high standard of living. Wealthy nations, such as the United States, Canada, the nations of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, are called developed nations. Developed nations are those nations with a higher average level of material well-being. Most nations, however, have low levels of material well-being. These are the less developed countries (LDCs). LDCs include the world's poorest countries, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Albania, and the nations of Central and Southern Africa. They also include nations such as Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the former republics of the Soviet Union. The countries in this second group of nations are not the world's poorest, but they have yet to achieve the high standard of living of the world's developed nations.

It is important to remember that development refers to a nation's material well-being. It is not a judgment of the worth of a nation or its people. The level of development does not indicate cultural superiority or inferiority. Rather, the level of development indicates how well a nation is able to feed, clothe, and shelter its people. It indicates how healthy people are, how well they are educated, and how productive they are.

Measuring Development

Life expectancy, diet, access to health care, literacy, energy consumption, and many other factors are used to measure development. As you will read below, the primary measure of a country's development, however, is per capita gross domestic product (GDP).

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