CLASS 12 GEOGRAPHY | Important Points and Short Notes | Chapter: 4 Human Development

CLASS 12 GEOGRAPHY | Important Points and Short Notes | Chapter: 4 Human Development

CHAPTER:4 
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

1.  Growth and Development refer to changes over a period of time. Growth is quantitative and value neutral can be both negative and positive. Development means a quantitative changes which is always positive and can not take place unless an or  increment or addition existing. 

FOR EX:-  The population of a city grows from 1 lakh to 2 lakh over a period, we say the city has grown. However facilities like housing, provision of basic services remain the same then this growth has not been accompanied by development.

2. For many decades, a country' development is measurement by it's economy. But in late 18s and early 2 South Asian economists, Mahbub-ul-Haq and Amartya Sen provide alternative view of development. The concept of human  Human Development was introduced by Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq. He describe human development as development. He said  people's choices are not fixed but keep on changing but the basic goal of development is to create conditions where people can live meaningful lives.

3. Access to resources, health and education are the key areas in human development. An educated child can not make the choice to be a doctor because her choice has got limited by her lack of education and city often poor people cannot choose to take medical treatment for disease because their choice is limited but their lack od resources.

4. The idea of human development is supported by the concept of equity, sustainability, productivity and empowerment.  Equity refers to making equal access to opportunities available to everybody  irrespective of their gender, race, income and in the Indian case, caste. Sustainability means continuity in the available if opportunities. For having sustainability human development each generation must have same opportunities e.g. Misuse of any of these resources lead to fewer opportunities for future generation.

Productivity means human human labour productivity or productivity in terms of human works by building capabilities in people. Efforts to increase their knowledge, or provide better health facilities. Empowerment means to have the power to make choices by increasing freedom and capabilities. Good governance and people oriented policies are required to empower people.

5. Approaches to Human development are (a)  income approach (b) Welfare approach (c) Basic Needs Approach (d) Capability

6. Human development index(HDI) ranks countries on the basis of their performances in the key areas of health, education and access to resources and ranking on based on a score between 0 to 1. For measuring health, a higher life expectancy means that people have a greater chance of living longer and healthier lives. The adult literacy rate and the gross enrolment ration represent access to knowledge. Access to resources is measured in terms of purchasing power(in U.S. dollars).

7. The closer a score is to 1, the greater  the level of human development. Yet, it is not the most reliable measure because it does not say anything about the distribution. The human poverty index is related to human development index and it measures the shortfall in human development. It is non-income measure. The probability of not surviving till the age of 40, the adult literacy rate, and the number of small  children who are underweight.

There is also discussion regarding a political freedom index, and a listing of the most corrupt countries. Bhutan is the only country in the world to officially proclaim the Gross National Happiness(GNP).

8. Six of the territory and per capita income are not directly related to human development often smaller countries have done better than larger ones in human development e.g. within India, Kerala performs much better than Punjab and Gujarat. High level of human development group has 53 countries where a lot of investment in the social sector has taken place and providing education and healthcare is also important. Most of the countries with a high human development score are locate in Europe.

9. Countries with medium levels of human development from the largest group has 39 countries and has emerged after second world war. Most of these countries improving the or human development score by adopting more people oriented policies and reducing social discrimination. 38 countries record low levels of human development these are small countries going through political turmoil and social instability, famine or high incidence of diseases.

10. For Example, X country has lower human development because its people follow Y religion, or belong to Z community. Such statements are misleading. To understand why a particular region keep reporting low or high levels it is important to look at the pattern of government expenditure on the social sector and amount of freedom people have. Countries with high development invest more in social sectors, generally free from public turmoil.

Places with low levels of human development tend to spend more on defence rather that social sectors and maybe these are located in areas of political instability not been able to initiate accelerated economic development.