Lesson video

Hello, geographers.

Welcome to today's lesson all about defining development.

So what we're aiming to do today is define a key concept in human geography, which is development.

And we're also going to define what we mean by quality of life.

We've got lots of images to look at.

We're gonna have lots of kind of interesting thoughts about what we really mean by some of these concepts we take for granted.

So shall we make a start? Let's get started.

Okay, so by the end of this lesson, I think we should aim to have the outcome, "I can define quality of life and development and understand how their definitions have changed over time." Our keywords are as follows.

For individuals or the community, a measure of social and economic well-being is quality of life.

Built environment is the place, the parts, sorry, of places in which we live that have been built by people rather than exist in nature.

Life satisfaction is a subjective measure of happiness used to compare countries.

And development is the progress of a country in terms of wealth, use of technology, and human welfare.

And we're gonna be using those keywords throughout the lesson.

So this is our lesson outline.

We're gonna start off by thinking about what is quality of life, and then secondly, what do we mean by development? So starting with what is quality of life.

Here, I've got six different images of people's homes around the world, and these images are taken from Dollar Street, a really interesting website invented by somebody called Anna Rosling Ronnlund, who had the idea that images were data and images were data that we could use to make the world more understandable.

I'd be interested to know what you think about that.

So I won't keep you guessing as to where they are for too long, but I think you'll agree that these six images show us the sort of variety of homes around the world.

Now, when we think about quality of life, remember our definition is it could be referring to individuals or a community, and it's a measure of social as well as economic well-being.

So we can use the built environment by which I'm in people's homes as part of our assessment of quality of life.

And we can see that the built environment is the parts of places in which we live that have been built by people rather than exist in nature.

If we look at images here of family homes alongside information about family income, and that's as they're presented on that website, I mentioned, Dollar Street, we can get some insight into the variation in quality of life around the globe.

So here on the left, we have an image of a family home in Haiti, and this family receives $107 U.

S.

per month.

And then on the right, we have an image of a home in Burundi, and this family receives $27 per month in terms of their household income.

And all of the photographs you're gonna see from Dollar Street have got this same information.

Of course, there are limitations with these datasets that I'm showing you here.

Firstly, as you might be able to tell by that image on the left from Haiti, some homes are temporary while others are more permanent.

So as a result, the family's lived experience in these places will be different.

So how long would these families actually be living in these homes? We need to know a bit more about that, don't we? To assess the impact of their home, perhaps on their quality of life.

Secondly, the family lives in each of these homes may be richer or poorer than the average within the country.

So we have two more images here, one of family home in Columbia and the other of a family home in Egypt.

But the question when we look at the monthly income is how similar or different is that to either the average, the mean average, or perhaps what the majority of the country is receiving in the way of income? As a result, these images may be more or less representative of quality of life in that country, or even within the country, they may be more or less representative of the region where they're located.

So there's some limitations with these datasets, but at the same time, these homes are interesting, and we can see some of these, the differences.

If we use a wide range of images, I would argue, we can and further income is a factor in quality of life.

Perhaps you can tell me about that in a second.

But I mean, if we look at these two homes and if you were to live in these two homes, how would your life be different? The quality of the built environment varies with income, and, for example, might affect how weatherproof they are.

So looking at that home in Columbia, I'd be particularly concerned about the fact it appears to have an open vent above the door.

If I look at the image of Egypt on the right, we can see some air conditioning units, and that tells me that this home has a different ability to be weatherproof, or in this instance, keep the family cool that live there in the heat of Egypt.

Okay, what can we tell about quality of life from this information about a family in Columbia then and another in Egypt? Pause the video now and discuss this with a partner, and then press Play when you're ready to hear the answer.

Now, if you told me, well, actually, these datasets are a little bit limited, so we've got two types of information here, haven't we? We've got monthly income and we've got some information about their housing, but there's a lot more to know about quality of life.

So if you made a point like that, well done.

You might have said that the different building materials used means one is more comfortable to live in, which does tell us something about quality of life surely.

And of course, in Egypt, we can see there's air conditioning units used to keep the family cool.

So we know that in the heat, they are cool.

If you made those sort of points, well done.

Ah, good point.

Of course, not everyone in Columbia or Egypt lives exactly like this.

So what can a single image and a set of income data for each of these countries, what can it really tell us about the difference between quality of life in Columbia and Egypt? Well, only a limited amount because not everyone in each country lives exactly like these, in exactly these homes.

Okay, housing is important, but also the local environment is also important.

And when I look at these two homes, so we've got people living, family living in an apartment in India, and they receive $963 a month in household income compared to a family living in Sweden in this detached house, and they're receiving $4,884 a month.

I'm also interested to see, well, what does the high street look like and where's the local bus stop and where's the local green space? So the local environment is also important to quality of life.

How is it important? Well, if you live in a city suburb or the countryside, this affects your quality of life.

It affects how noisy or polluted it is, densely or sparsely populated, cutoff or connected.

For example, how developed the public system of transport is.

Remember, I was talking about that bus stop? So there's a lot that goes into quality of life, not just in terms of one's home, but also the local environment in which you live.

So it's turning into a multifaceted concept, isn't it, in geography, quality of life.

So there are lots of different aspects that we need to consider when we think about somebody's quality of life.

So we are thinking about standard of living, so that might include the home in which they live, employment, what type of job they do, education, that's access to education and their qualifications gained, their health, the leisure and social activities they have access to and take part in, economic and physical security, basic human rights, and the natural and the living environment.

So that was sort of what I was hinting at in that last slide, wasn't it? But this is a definition, a multifaceted definition of quality of life that comes from Eurostat.

Lots to think about here, isn't there? So quality of life is a measure of social and economic well-being.

So it's not just about the income, but it's also about their health and their education and so much more.

And here, we can see photographs of the families that live in the homes that we've been just been looking at in Columbia and Sweden.

And immediately, from those photographs, we can see something about family structure and family life.

And that gives us a bit more of an insight into quality of life in terms of the social side as well as the economic well-being.

Now, beyond meeting basic needs such as having access to clean water, food, and decent shelter, some aspects of quality of life are subjective, such as how satisfied we are with our lives, how happy we are.

The World Health Organisation defines quality of life in the following way, an individual's perception of their position in the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectation, standards, and concerns.

So this is not to say that quality of life is entirely relative.

We could agree that everyone needs things like access to clean water, food and shelter, but there is some aspect of quality of life which is subjective.

So let's have a little look at that.

Here, we've got a map of the world, where, it's a choropleth map.

So the countries are given a colour according to a score, which is all about life satisfaction, which is a measure of happiness.

So a survey of happiness in 160 countries around the world asked people to imagine a ladder with steps numbered 0 to 10, where 10 was the best life for them and 0 was the worst.

Then they were asked, "On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?" So you can imagine.

You might have a go at answering that question.

So this choropleth map presents national averages of those scores, when we looked at what everyone said in terms of which rung of the ladder they were on.

The darker the colour, the higher the score.

And here, we've got some individual country scores for you.

So we've been looking, haven't we, at homes in Sweden, Columbia, India, Egypt, and Burundi.

So that's why I've picked out their life satisfaction score from 2023.

We've also got some information there about a country called Afghanistan.

And if we look at that global pattern, we can see that there is quite a patchwork in terms of the scores.

You have a look at that map and try and work out where you think the highest scores are found, and where some of the lowest scores are found.

That choropleth map's quite effective, isn't it, in terms of the depth of colour, giving us an idea of the score.

But notably, scores vary by age group within all countries.

So if you ask people of different age groups where they see themself on the rungs of that happiness or life satisfaction ladder, they give different answers.

And here, we just have a map of national average scores.

So this variation is not evident in the data presented.

So one thing to remember about that dataset.

Leaving that aside, what surprises you about the global pattern of average life satisfaction? Or is that was that the pattern you're expecting? So Jun has an answer for us here.

The score was very similar in Mexico and the U.

S.

A.

And yes, we can see that Canada, U.

S.

A.

, and Mexico all appear to have the same sort of score, which is roundabout a six on our life satisfaction scale.

He makes a second point that people in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil appear to have a similar level of satisfaction to much of western Europe.

So again, sitting at that point of sort of six, seven, there's some similarities there, isn't there, in terms of life satisfaction where we might expect that to be have been quite different if we think about comparing those areas in terms of level of income.

So perhaps there are some surprising outcomes from that survey.

How much can we rely on this data as a picture of how quality of life varies worldwide? How much can we rely on this data? Well, Sam's got an answer for us here.

She says, "It's interesting but limited.

It gives just one figure to represent a whole country, when in fact scores vary by age group.

Also, I'm not sure we could agree on a life satisfaction score even within our geography class as it's really subjective." Absolutely, yeah.

If we were to debate that this, you and I, we probably come up with different scores.

So how are we using one number to describe a whole society within a country? It's rather strange, isn't it? So maybe, maybe we can't rely entirely on this to give a a really good gauge for quality of life.

It's interesting, isn't it, geographers, to think about limitations of datasets.

So quick check for you.

Where in the world were people on average most satisfied with their lives in 2023? Have another look at that map and discuss it with a partner.

So if you said, well, Northwest Europe, so for example, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, lots of countries have got high levels of life satisfaction, you'd be absolutely right.

But some of you, no doubt, will have highlighted Australia and New Zealand.

So yes, this is another area where we've got high levels of life satisfaction.

Okay, some practise tasks for you.

Firstly, using the internet to find images, research quality of life in two contrasting countries, they might be on different continents or have diff life satisfaction scores.

So use that map we've just been looking at.

Dollar Street is, of course, a great site to use for this.

So Dollar Street have photographs of up to 150 items within people's homes across 50 different countries and 250 different families, which is why I'm recommending it.

Secondly, make a note of one reason why what you found was useful and one limitation of the data.

So I'm interested in kind of what you think is the value of the data that's presented, but one limitation of it.

And then thirdly, can you explain why some aspects of quality of life are subjective? So lots to do there.

Pause the video and then come back to me when you want to hear some suggested answers or the correct answers.

So how did you get on? First question was asking you to do some research.

And if you've do used a site a bit like Dollar Street or other images online, you might have found that quality of life varies a huge amount within as well as between countries.

And that's I guess one of the reasons why that that Dollar Street website was set up.

It was to just give the idea that there's actually huge variation within as well as between countries.

Secondly, you are asked to make a note of one reason why what you found is useful.

And we have the idea that images of people's homes, belongings, and their street provide some information, interesting information about their general well-being.

We can infer some things.

But a limitation is it's hard for us to be sure about quality of life, perhaps without talking directly to people about their lived experience.

That's what you do if you were doing research into people in your local area, wouldn't you, and quality of life there.

Third task was to explain why some aspects of quality of life are subjective, and your answer might include the following, "Everyone has basic needs, such as having food, water, shelter, healthcare, and an education.

Whether these needs are met is really important to your quality of life, but so too is how you view your own life.

Your view is likely to be influenced by local culture, where you live, for example, what people value, as well as your position within the local community.

These factors are place-specific.

They influence life satisfaction and well-being in addition to more obvious things, such as the quality of the built environment which affects standard of living." So that idea that we have the subjective as well as perhaps the more objective elements of quality of life.

That it's multifaceted.

Okay, second part of the lesson then, what do we mean by development? What do we mean by this? After all, our title is defining development.

So in the 21st century, there's a widening in the standards of living and well-being between the world's economically richest and the poorest.

So how do we bridge that gap? Some of the question we might ask as geographers, how do we bridge that gap? Now, development is defined as the progress of a country in terms of wealth, use of technology, and human welfare.

And surely, this process of progress is how we are going to bridge that gap.

However, the meaning of development is contested.

As a concept, it has been debated over time.

And we're gonna think about what it's meant at different times so that we're really clear on what we mean by this term, development.

So historically, it was thought that there was a clear course for countries to develop.

Here, we can see Rostow's five-stage model of economic development with countries beginning as a traditional society.

So primarily, people are employed in agriculture and working through different stages, with increasing income and investment in manufacturing industries, moving to a point of industrialization, and an age of mass consumption by stage five.

So we got increasing income over time represented in that five-stage model of economic development.

So development was viewed as a stage-based process of modernization, and it was purely defined as economic change.

Science and technology would be used to advance industry and exports, leading to economic growth.

So that was the kind of the simple premise, and that was what all countries were going to do over time.

That was the idea.

Economic growth would improve the standard for living for all it was suggested, and this process appeared to be apolitical.

So it was something that was just going to happen.

However, the American economist Rostow's five stage model of economic development was limited, as it was based on the experience of countries in North America and Europe.

So that initially, from the very start, gets us thinking about whether this is going to apply to all countries around the world.

So I'm giving you a bit of a hint.

And it was particularly influential in the 1960s.

So that's quite a while ago.

Perhaps our ideas have changed since then.

In reality, the economies of some lower-income countries, LICs, were limited by international trade rules.

So that was one thing.

And others by exploitative relationships with higher-income countries, HICs, for example, if they'd been colonised.

And here, we've got an image, which is a map of the British Empire at its territorial peak in 1921.

So we can see all the different countries that the British had colonised around the world.

And, you know, consider those countries, think about their income levels today and the impact that that exploitative relationship had on their economic development.

Of course, we'll be coming back to that later.

So not only was the predicted economic takeoff, that was Rostow's idea, of those low-income countries hampered by international rules and their relationships, those exploitative relationships, but in many cases, growth did not trickle down to the whole population.

What do I mean by that? That wealth did not trickle down.

Corruption, concentrated wealth in the hands of those who were already wealthy in some LICs and NEEs today.

So the example there is that oil-rich countries were good examples of where some LICs have really benefited from that natural resource within the country, but that wealth that's bought into the country linked to the sale of oil, the export of oil, has not been fairly distributed due to corruption.

So criminal practises concentrating the wealth.

Today, we distinguish between economic development, growth, and social development, that being increasing human capabilities.

So while a country can develop economically, the question is, is it developing in terms of society as a whole and their capabilities? Two sort of different things.

So, true or false? Quick check for you.

Geographers agree that economic development improves everyone's standard of living equally.

What do you think? Pause the video, discuss that with a partner, and then come back to me in a a few seconds.

And if you said false, you'd be absolutely right.

But can you explain why? That's right, the answer we had was, while economic development does improve standards of living in general, geographers understand that some people within a country benefit more than others.

So it's not fair to say that economic development improves everyone's standards of living equally.

That really hasn't been the experience of many countries, and it particularly hasn't been the experience when we think about the population within each country.

So some people benefit much, much more than others if that wealth is shared unfairly.

So the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen saw the purpose of development as improving our capability to lead the lives we have reason to value.

So Amartya Sen was writing much later on than, say, Rostow in the 1960s.

So in the 1990s, Sen's definition of human development broadened it, so broadened our understanding of development from just economic development to taking in human welfare.

So thinking about quality of life.

It assessed development at the scale of the individual, not the nation, not the country scale.

And as with us, we're geographers, we're interested in different scales, aren't we? So we're thinking about development to the scale of the individual.

And it suggested that everyone has an equal entitlement to a good life.

So that idea of equality coming in there.

And we've got our example here of the sustainable development goal, one of the goals that was created by the United Nations in 2015, so much later.

And this is goal number five, which is about gender equality.

So gender equality is a current development goal of the United Nations.

So an indicator of the way that this concept of development has really been broadened by more recent thinkers like Amartya Sen.

In the year 2000, the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum outlined a set of central human capabilities that should be universally recognised to ensure a dignified life for all individuals, especially women.

Both Sen and Nussbaum highlighted that social justice is a goal of development.

So that broadening of the concept of development coming in over time.

And if we think today about women's capabilities that both those thinkers were touching on, women's capabilities have not been recognised but instead reversed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

If development refers to the process of social and economic progress, today, it is no longer seen as inevitable or apolitical.

So when I say inevitable, I mean it's not definitely going to be one way.

And it's certainly not apolitical, it's linked to politics.

And clearly, we can see gender politics in Afghanistan.

So people in Afghanistan, since 2021, have been ruled by the Taliban, and women have lost access to higher education.

In 2024, new laws banning women's voices in public were announced by the Taliban.

This is the group who are in control in Afghanistan.

And women have very few options to fulfil those capabilities that were discussed, either in terms of education or employment.

Hard for us to imagine.

Further, we now recognise that industrial revolution and economic growth can to over consumption, waste, and cause environmental degradation.

If we look again at the UN's 2015 sustainable development goals that I mentioned, they include three particular goals linked to the environment.

So we've got affordable and clean energy, SDG 7, responsible consumption and production, SDG 12 here, and climate action, SDG 13.

And that climate action goal really relates to enabling different countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change among other things.

So the concept of development has been broadened to ensure that care for the environment is part of our progress.

Today, we are more aware of the impact of industrialization and mass consumption on our planet.

And environmental justice now forms part of the concept of social justice.

So we've seen that gradual broadening of ideas about development over time.

So check for you here.

In geography, the concept of development.

have a read through those options and then come back to me when you've made a decision.

Well, if you said, "In geography, the concept of development refers to a process of social and economic progress," well done.

You're absolutely right.

Task for you here.

Can you draw lines to link these terms to their correct definition? So we've got three terms there, quality of life, development, and social justice.

Can you link them to the correct definition? Pause the video here and have a go at this task, then restart it.

Well done.

So we've got this idea that quality of life is for individuals or the community, a measure of social and economic well-being.

Development is the progress of a country in terms of wealth, use of technology, and human welfare.

And social justice is that all people should have the same rights and opportunities within a country, and the wealth and resources should benefit all.

This is a goal of development.

Second task for you here then, complete the following sentence, Amartya Sen's sends definition of human development is different from earlier definitions because.

So I want you to have a go completing that sentence.

You might add another sentence at the end of it as well.

So it might turn into a complete answer.

Pause the video now.

So I'm interested in what you're gonna write in a minute.

Okay.

And we have a suggested answer for you here.

So your answer might include, it broadens the idea of development to include human welfare.

It focuses on the capabilities of people to lead lives they have reason to value, whereas earlier definitions didn't focus on value systems or life satisfaction.

And you might have said, "Sen was interested in progress at the scale of an individual, not the progress of a country as a whole.

His definition suggests equality of entitlement to a good life, so it highlights the need for social justice." That last answers kind of has two ideas within it, doesn't it? So well done if your answer kind of really move things on like that.

Okay, so how should we summarise the lesson? Well, quality of life is much more than material wealth.

It encompasses well-being and life satisfaction, making it hard to measure.

Historically, the concept of development was linked to a Eurocentric view of economic progress as inevitable, facilitated by technology and trade.

Many lower-income countries could not follow the same economic path given the effects of colonialism and international trade rules.

And today, the concept of development has broadened to include human welfare, social, and environmental justice.

It's no longer viewed as inevitable or apolitical.

Well, thank you for your time.

We've covered an awful lot today, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.