Measurements of Regional and Global Disparities
Define indices of infant mortality, education, nutrition, income, marginalization and Human Development Index (HDI).
Income
Three factors
Explain the value of indices in measuring disparities across the globe.
Income
Positive
Education
Positive
Infant Mortality
Positive
Life Expectancy
Positives
Nutrition
Positive
Nutrition (Daily Calorie Intake)
Positive
Human Development Index
Positives
Marginalization Index
Positives
Gender Inequality Index
Positives
Income
- GNI is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by resident of the country.
- It is the GDP plus incomes of residents residing in other countries minus income earned by nonresidents.
- Calculated in different ways such as the adult literacy, enrollment in primary/ secondary/ tertiary education, expected years in school, mean years in school and ratio of female to male primary enrollment
- The number of babies per 1000 live births who die under the age of one.
- Life expectancy at birth indicates the average number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay at the same throughout its life.
- The percentage of children underweight or under height for their age
- The amount of food measured in calories per person per day
- Improving the quality of all human lives.
- Reaching an acceptable standard of living for all people by improving economic and social conditions (World Bank).
- The HDI is an attempt to represent human well-being and allow comparisons among different countries/regions.
- Components include: health (life expectancy), education (mean year of schooling, expected years of schooling, standard of living (GNI per capita)
- Used in Mexico to measure regional disparities in the country
- Measuring access to basic services like drinking water & electricity, literacy rates, quality of housing, and the proportion of people who are poorly paid. Social exclusion (marginalization) refers to processes in which individuals or entire communities of people are systematically blocked from rights, opportunities and resources (e.g. housing, employment, healthcare, civic engagement, democratic participation and due process) that are normally available to members of society and which are key to social integration.
Three factors
- Reproductive health
- Women empowerment
- Participation in labor forces
Explain the value of indices in measuring disparities across the globe.
Income
Positive
- It includes money earned abroad that is earned by citizens of the specific country and therefore provides a more extensive indicator of the income of the country.
- A per-capita indicator ensures that it can be compared with other countries justly without the number of people the country does not affect the indicator.
- Income is important as it also shows the efficiency of firms within the economy and the income that they create.
- Basis of country’s development in the macro level, but not on the household level – it hides national disparities.
- Even though GNI is high human development could be low indicating due to the vast difference in development.
- It doesn’t include purchasing power parity because it also accounts for abroad residents and standard of living is inconsistent then.
- Does not include money from informal sector.
- Hides disparities within a country.
Education
Positive
- Regarded as a vital component of socio-economic and sustainable development
- A good indicator of improvement in equity for women in like with MDG’s
- Does not take into account the quality and depth of education provided (such as facilities, resources and opportunities)
- Does not show school drop-out rates
Infant Mortality
Positive
- Important indicator of health and levels of sanitation and therefore socio-economic progress
- An indication of the quality of childcare and position of women
- Hides regional disparities within a country
- Data collected in some countries may be unreliable, particularly in recording gender differences in infant mortality.
Life Expectancy
Positives
- Easy to understand
- Allows comparison over time and between different groups and eliminates the influences of age structure of the population
- Hides regional disparities within a country
- Doesn't take into account of morbidity, the years of ill health (like HALE does)
Nutrition
Positive
- Nourishment is an important indicator because it can affect people’s ability to work, get educated and fight disease.
- Malnutrition rate is a good indicator if whether what you are consuming is healthy and if whether it signals development
- Doesn’t take into account disparities within countries – overall value (food is unevenly distributed).
- Not entirely reliable of development – malnutrition could also be eating too much bad food
- Needs to be linked with requirements as they alter for different people in different places and with different genders
Nutrition (Daily Calorie Intake)
Positive
- Could be a good indicator of the food you consume
- Good indicator of wealth
- Not entirely reliable indicator of well-being and diet
- Doesn’t take nutrients consumption into account
- Food is unevenly distributed around the a country as well and this doesn’t account for that
- Needs to be linked to calorie requirement because different people need different amounts of calories for the work they do
Human Development Index
Positives
- Considers both economic and social development - uses composite indices.
- Gives a more holistic view of development (one of the first indices to do so).
- Allows comparison between countries and regions
- Allows analysis of different components
- Does not take the environment, level of happiness, and other indices into consideration.
- All the different indicators are equally measured/ drawbacks in the weighting.
- It does not take technological development into consideration.
- Data could be unreliable, incomplete or unavailable
- Does not represent internal disparities
Marginalization Index
Positives
- When a group of people become separated from society. So this index measures the extent of marginalization in a society.
- Considers many indicators to observe the marginalization and social exclusions of peoples.
- Does not take into account all indicators.
- Sometimes can only be an overall representation of a society, but not of individuals (omitting disparities in the society).
Gender Inequality Index
Positives
- High gender equality means women have more jobs opportunities.
- When have more jobs opportunities, can earn more income.
- Can promote to higher position in organization.
- Complexity of the index makes it difficult to interpret, because many non-linear procedures are used.
- The losses in achievement due to gender inequality (not directly comparable to total inequality losses because different variables are used).
- Some argue that the index is not equally relevant/meaningful across different regions (E.g. access to health services may be influenced by other factors such as socio-economic levels and cultural practices)
- Does not take into account the informal work or unpaid work, so it is insufficient in capturing the true disparities.
- Includes both indicators that compare women vs. men and absolute women-specific ones, which makes it complicated