Individual Country Analysis

The countries being analyzed are China, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia and Singapore. These countries have had detailed graphs measured on the previous page if you would like to refer to that. These countries were chosen mainly because they were geographically diverse, diverse cultures and diverse history.

China

China is currently #101 in the Human Development Index when compared to the world. This is considered to be Medium Human Development. A major reason for this is that China has the highest populated country in the world with 1 in every 5 people of the world living in China alone. This huge population leads to many problems. One would be pollution and not just air pollution, which unfortunately is a major problem in China, but also Noise Pollution as the more people there are the more likely there will be more noise and this can lead to stress-related illnesses, high blood pressure, and hearing loss. As previously mentioned there is Air Pollution to which leads to many other diseases, the pollution coming from the numerous factories in China. Also due to overpopulation, the chances of being able to get a high paying job are slim and lead to the majority of the population working low wages in cramped environments which is very common in China. The large population while leading to many problems isn't the only factor leading to comparatively low Human Development for a "First World Country." Another factor could be the Chinese culture, as Chinese culture is very demanding of its people such as requiring kids to be the best of the best in their schools which can lead to kids who can't accomplish such goals to be severely depressed, not be able to look to family for support as the family may disown them for such things, this can lead to even more severe depression and possibly extreme answers to an unfortunate situation, suicide. With China having the seventh highest suicide rate in the world, it's apparent that this is an issue. While the human development index may not directly consider suicide, suicide still affects HDI as suicide is caused from mental disease depression and one suicide can lead to others being affected and with the effect rippling across the whole population possibly.

Mexico

Mexico is currently #61 in the Human Development Index when compared to the world. This is considered to be High Human Development, meaning that Mexico is actually developing much better than one might suspect from all that they read of Mexico in the media. Like many other Latin America countries, Mexico has a rather high HDI which shocks me personally as from what I have heard about Mexico it doesn't sound very developed. But then after doing some analysis I realized why Mexico had such a high DPI. A major factor of HDI is Life Expectancy and this is increased in Mexico due to there not being as many processed foods or easy means of transportation causing people to have to walk long distances and eat generally healthier. Also they likely have lower class jobs in general, and lower class jobs usually require much more manual labor. With these factors to think about one can see why Mexico may have a good Life Expectancy and in turn a good HDI. Also Education in Mexico is quite prevalent considering its reputation with at least 50% graduating from secondary school meaning high school, which is higher than most would suspect. And also the GDP of Mexico is rather high too being #67 when compared worldwide along with only 5% of the population being unemployed in total, lower than the U.S. unemployment rate. Mexico also has quite high rate of tourism which leads to more money being flooded into the economy and has good relations with U.S. companies to manufacture for them leading to even more economic growth. Another major factor is that Mexico is seventh largest producer of oil in the world, oil is a very precious good which can be costly and thus lead to quite a bit of money into the economy leading to a rather high GDP which in turn also helps explain the high HDI.

Nigeria

Nigeria is currently #153 in the Human Development Index when compared to the world. This is considered to be Low Human Development which is the lowest category a country can be in when considering HDI. Nigeria has a low HDI because it has a rather low life expectancy because of many diseases, a main culprit being HIV/AIDS. A major reason that a STD is a common disease in Nigeria is because the culture is very deeply traditional and religious meaning that sex is kept a private subject and is seen as indecent to talk about leading to no sexual education in schools or anywhere else. This leads to low use of protection during sexual relations and thus increases the spread of STDs. Another reason for such a high spread of STDs is because Nigeria is a major patriarchy society, meaning women are seen as lesser people than men. This wrongful belief causes women to be trapped into being a target for STDs as they must conform to the norms of a patriarchy society in which polygamy is permitted leading them to submit when "asked" to have sex, low protection usage causing women being more likely to get STDs which leads to an epidemic of STDs being spread. And so if a woman gets pregnant, the child is more than likely to have HIV/AIDS too when born. Due to this serious disease many die young or are left orphaned. This also leads to a low GDP as these orphaned children have to do disgusting jobs such as child prostitution and leading to drug use to find "happiness" in these dark situations. The drug use also leads to lower life expectancy and higher dropout rates from schools leading to lower literacy rates of around 60 percent. These factors combined lead to a drastically low HDI.

Russia

Russia is currently #55 in the Human Development Index when compared to the world. This is considered High Human Development, as is expected of a nation that is a major superpower in the world especially during the 20th century at the time of the Cold War when it was the Soviet Union and the largest nation to ever exist in the past century. Even though the USSR was mainly a communist nation, by the 1990s the nation became into a constitutional republic which even though is much better than a communist nation isn't still very perfect as many would consider it a "fake" republic and rather an oligarchy. This is due to all the corruption in the government, in fact the average bribe in the Russia is more than $10,000. Corruption tends to trump laws in every case in Russia, such as government leaders asking companies to bid on whether they can have a contract in Russia or not. In fact, in a study done by Transparency International, Russia was found to be 143rd in least corrupt, a drop down from 46th back in 1996, meaning that it's one of the most corrupt countries on the earth. Sure a corrupt government can technically still have strong development, which Russia comparatively does. But this also stifles development as Russia is looking to increase its economy to the 5th biggest in the world, currently being the 11th biggest. Experts say that this would be a hard goal for Russia to accomplish as outside investors are afraid of investing and conducting business in Russia due to the amount of corruption there is, leading to investors to have to make risky investments as information could be flawed or have to spend more money to bid on a contract for a company against competitors. This slows down economic growth and shows why for such a superpower Russia is low on the Human Development Index scale when compared to other superpowers such as the United States. But Russia has well established education and as such has a high literacy rate of nearly 99.7% which is higher than the United States, this being due to the state governed schooling and many initiatives to make education an importance in Russia. Even though Russia has a poverty rate of 10% nearly, a rather high poverty rate as one must also consider the people who are barely above poverty and living paycheck to paycheck, Russia still has a long national average life expectancy of 60 years. This mainly being due to the free health care guaranteed to citizens, the system being inherited from the communist Soviet Union. But still life expectancy has dropped by 10 years in the last decade, probably due to the HIV epidemic, high infant mortality rates and harsh working conditions with not fully built cities (meaning lots of construction areas where kids may play in and possibly get hurt) as the country is mostly rural due to being such a large size. So all these factors can explain why Russia has a high HDI when compared to the world but rather a low HDI when compared to other superpowers.

Singapore

Singapore is currently #18 in the Human Development Index when compared to the world. This is considered Very High Human Development, a fact that shocked me as many of Singapore's neighbors have a relatively low HDI. A main reason for this high HDI in my opinion is that Singapore is a relatively small country being the 190th largest country in the world out of 250 while having the 10th highest GDP in the world, a GDP larger than the United States. This obviously shows that the standard of living in Singapore is rather high and this can also be shown by, some would say an unrelated statistic, internet access. Singapore has the 33rd fastest internet speed in the world along with nearly 99% of Singapore having readily available internet access. This leads to readily available knowledge from the internet for citizens of Singapore to educate themselves with. If that's not enough, Singapore has a great education system that keeps kids well educated and a culture where education is seen as something very needed and nearly as a "religion" by some. Singapore also maintains a philosophy of the people being its primary resource thus they know it's a requirement for the government to educate them. This leads to very high literacy rate of 93% and high percentage of school enrollment. Singapore maintains "top-quality, universal healthcare system, measured in terms of all important parameters, especially accessibility, affordability and quality of care" and this is shown by a life expectancy of 85 years old, the 4th highest in the world. Even though Singapore is very high HDI scale, it could possibly increase it's ranking by reducing the huge amounts of air pollution that is unfortunately in Singapore, even though the air pollution doesn't seem to affect the health of Singapore's citizens possibly due to readily available health care for such situations.