Geographers Making Sense of the World 2:

Measuring Well-Being and Contemporary World Order

Measurements of Economic Health and Social Well-Being

a) Gross Domestic Product (GDP): an estimate of the total value of all materials, foodstuffs, goods, and services produced by a country in a particular year. (normally given per capita)

b) Gross National Income (GNI):

The value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s borders (gross domestic product GDP), plus the net income from abroad (formerly referred to as gross national product, or GNP)

c) Various other measures such as:

• life expectancy, • infant mortality, • adult literacy, • access to internet, • gender equity,• physicians per capita, etc.

Thrilling Example of Graphing Measurements! Gapminder:

http://graphs.gapminder.org/world

d) Population pyramids. These display the population of a country by age and gender.

World Population Change over Time:

http://content.bfwpub.com/webroot_pubcontent/Content/BCS_4/Pulsipher5e/Thematic_Interactive_Maps/ch01/pr01pm01.htm

d. Population Pyramids

Figure 1.33

Dynamic population pyramids: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/pyramids.html

e) Measurements of Equity

United Nations’ Development Programme’s Gender Empowerment Index. women’s incomes, their participation in labor force in professional and managerial roles, number of government seats held.

UN’s Gender Development Index

Ranks countries on whether they provide basic literacy, health care, access to income available to both men and women.

f. Alternative Measurements of Well-Being

1. Material Culture: the stuff people own

A Californian Family’s Possessions

A Mongolian Family’s Possessions

2. What People in a Place Eat

3. Gross National Happiness Index

http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/gnhIndex/intruductionGNH.aspx

Mastering Geography Video: Gross National Happiness

Measurements of Economic Health and Social Well-Being:

Summary

a) Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

b) Gross National Product (GNP)

c) Various measures such as: life expectancy, infant mortality, adult literacy, etc.

d) Population pyramids

e) ) Alternative Measures: Gross National Happiness

f) UNDP’s Gender Equity Index and UN’s Gender Development Index

Contemporary World Order

This lecture focuses on the way that power is organized among the world’s regions, and how this order came to be.

Contemporary World Order:

Three Tiers

The Core: those regions that dominate trade, control the most advanced technologies, and have high levels of productivity within diversified economies.

They enjoy relatively high per capita incomes. The success of core countries depends on their dominance and control over other regions.

The Periphery: regions that have resisted or remained economically and politically unable to participate in this process of incorporation into the world system. Peripheral regions are characterized by dependent and disadvantageous trading relationships, by inadequate or obsolete technologies, and by undeveloped or narrowly specialized economies with low levels of productivity.

Semi-Periphery are able to exploit peripheral regions but are themselves exploited and dominated by the core regions.

The status of states is fluid and change over time.

Developed countries are shown in blue. (According to the International Monetary Fund, as of 2008).Least developed: pink

European Colonization and Imperialism: late 1500s-early 1900s

Example:

1880-1912: Europeans carved up the African continent.

Reason behind colonization and imperialism:

search for expanded arena for trade, need for raw materials, commercial opportunities

Colonial Resource Extraction

How did this World Order come to be?

Colonialism and Imperialism Created an International Division of Labor that persists in many places today:

wherein countries and regions specialized in a product or material that the core needed, that the core couldn’t produce itself, and that the country could produce with comparative advantage over other countries.

Neo-colonialism: refers to economic and political strategies by which powerful states in core economies indirectly maintain or extend their influence over other areas or people.

Globalization: the growth of interregional and worldwide linkages and the changes they are bringing about.

Interconnectedness…

Globalization and Culture Change

• Cultural homogeneity– A perceived lack of diversity– Seen as resulting from globalization

• Cultural identity– Sense of distinctiveness– Revived by ease of telecommunication,

transportation• Multiculturalism

– The state of relating to, reflecting, or being adapted to several cultures

How is Global Economy Organized?in other words: where’s the power?

• World War II saw the end of old colonial system

• Replaced by multinational corporations, who:– Control vast amounts of capital– Operate across conventional borders, maximizing

profit by operating globally– Use disparities in labor costs and standard of

wealth across borders

There are three main consequences of today’s economic globalization:

1. There are three main core areas in the world which house the major transnational corporations and financial institutions. The three cores are connected through investment, trade, and communication.

The Triadic Core

2. Economic globalization has intensified the differences between rich and poor.

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s income, while the bottom fifth of the world’s population has 1% of the world income.

2. Economic globalization has intensified the differences between rich and poor.

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s income, while the bottom fifth of the world’s population has 1% of the world income.

•If you remove the countries that contribute 5% of the global GDP from a world map, you remove nearly half of the world’s population from the map.

2. Economic globalization has intensified the differences between rich and poor.

Origin: FiveThirtyEight websiteRetrieved from: Strangemaps.com

The World Map Minus Those Countries that Contribute the Bottom 5% of Global Gross Domestic Product

(constitutes 2.9 billion people)

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s income, while the bottom fifth of the world’s population has 1% of the world income.

•If you remove the countries that contribute 5% of the global GDP from a world map, you remove nearly half of the world’s population from the map.

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s telephone lines, the bottom fifth has 1.5%

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s income, while the bottom fifth of the world’s population has 1% of the world income.

•If you remove the countries that contribute 5% of the global GDP from a world map, you remove nearly half of the world’s population from the map.

•The top fifth of the world’s population has 74% of the world’s telephone lines, the bottom fifth has 1.5%

•In 2000 life expectancy in Australia was 79 years, in Ethiopia it was 42 years. In most African countries, only 60-70% of the population will live to age 40.

•Consider other Life Expectancy rates: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/

3. Economic globalization is not matched by political globalization. In other words, there is no political globalization or system that provides an adequate framework for coping with the consequences of globalization.

“Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor, Monday Oct. 6, 2008. Wall Street tumbled again Monday, joining a sell-off around the world as fears grew that the financial crisis will cascade through economies globally despite bailout efforts by the U.S. and other governments. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)” (the day the Dow dropped below 10,000 shares for first time since 2004)

From: Huffington Post.com

Have a great day!