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- Globalisation has led to dramatic increases in development for some countries, but also widening development gap extremities and disparities in environmental quality. Globalisation has positive and negative impacts on development.
- Development is the process of change and advancement. Development can be economic, social, cultural, political, environmental and demographic. Countries develop to improve the quality of life for inhabitants.
- Development can vary within a country and between countries. The development gap is a term used to describe the widening gap between the richest (most developed) and poorest (least developed) countries of the world.
- Many critics of globalisation claim that 'the rich get richer while the poor get poorer'. Here, globalisation widens the development gap. This means there is increasing inequality.
- The Kuznets curve suggests that as industrialisation occurs, environmental degradation increases and then decreases in the post-industrial phase. Economic development leads to an initial deterioration in the environment but once a certain level of development is reached (known as the turning point), environmental degradation decreases. This is because from the turning point, money is invested back into the environment repairing degradation.
- This suggests economic development is beneficial for the environment as eventually economies can continue to grow and the environment remains intact.
- Economic measures of development include income per capital and the economic sector balance. Single indices include life expectancy and GDP per capita because they are easy to use however single measures are not very accurate. Gross national income (GNI) is GDP plus net income from abroad such as remittances.
- Composite indices are those made up of more than one variable. As these tend to focus on multiple types of development they are usually viewed as better reflections of the development process. The Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) are composite.
- The GII is also by the United Nations Development Programme, measuring gender inequalities in three dimensions - health, empowerment and the labour market.
- Air pollution indices are measures focused on environmental quality. These indices show that environment quality is often poor in developing and emerging economies. Environment quality usually increases as economic and social development increase where a country transitions from the industrial phase to the post-industrial phase.
- Income inequality is the gap between the incomes of individuals. Income inequality can be on a local, national and global scale.
- The Gini Coefficient is a measure of income inequality which condenses the entire income distribution of a country into one number between 0 and 1 or as a percentage between 0 and 100. 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents perfect inequality so the higher the number, the higher the inequality. The coefficient can be used to measure trends in widening income inequality, globally and nationally.
- The Lorenz curve can be used to represent income inequality with the Gini Coefficient. The Gini Coefficient measures the area between the Lorenz curve and the line of absolute equality. The further the curve is from the 45 degree line, the more unequal the society. Absolute equality is where income is distributed equally across the population, meaning that 50% of the population would earn 50% of the national income and so on. Inequality is where a percentage of the population does not earn an equal amount of the national income.
- The trends in widening income inequality, globally and nationally measured using the Gini Coefficient, suggest globalisation has created winners and losers for people and physical environments between and within developed, emerging and developing economies. Income inequality can link to the development gap, determining the development of a country. Typically, as the HDI increases, income inequality tends to decrease. Links can be seen between rising wealth and the provision of health and education services (social development).
- Winners include the emerging economies such as China. Other winners of globalisation include people who work for TNCs in developed countries with reasonable job security. Losers include the developed world's middle classes due to deindustrialisation, and the very poorest in the world such as Sub-Saharan Africa and some LLDCs.
- Factory workers in China may be winners as they have acceptable incomes however poor working conditions may mean they could be losers of globalisation.
- Contrasting trends in economic development and environmental management between global regions since 1970 indicate differential progress that can be related to the outcomes from globalisation.
- Sweden's income per person has grown hugely although it's ecological footprint has not. This suggests that economic development in Sweden has not affected the quality of the environment so environmental management maintains biodiversity, water and air quality.
- Since 2001, in China, rising incomes correlate with large increases in ecological footprint. There is a contrasting trend suggesting that economic development has high environmental costs.
- Some countries such as Sweden can take advantage of globalisation and develop economically without damaging hindering social and environmental development while others such as China cannot.
Additional resources:
Read the article published at the Pew Research Center. Click here to access the article. Who are the winners and losers from globalisation?
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