Income and Other Goals
* Most people have higher income as a developmental goal.
* Non-measurable developmental goals like respect, security and equality are more important than income when it comes to working women and encouraging more women to work.
* People always want development.
Development is about:
* Setting a goal for development
* Finding ways to achieve the goal for development
* Development is possible only through democratic political processes.
* Different people have different developmental goals depending on their social, educational and financial states.
* What may be development for some may not be development for others.
National Development Comparison
It is easier to compare things when we compare them using a particular criterion or characteristic.
* Countries with more income are considered more developed than other countries that have less income.
* The total income of a country is the sum of the incomes of its entire population. Since different countries have different populations, total income is not a reliable criterion to compare national development.
* A more reliable criterion for comparing national development is the average income or per capita income.
* Average income of a country = Total income of the country/Population of the country.
* Based on its per capita income, India falls into the category of low-income countries.
* Per capita income hides individual income disparities.
* Countries with equitable distribution of income have no rich and no poor.
* Countries without an equitable distribution of income have rich and poor people.
Other Criteria of Economic Development
* Higher income alone cannot bring about development.
* Several criteria other than per-capita income are used to evaluate economic development in different states and countries.
Some criteria other than income used to compare development are:
* Life expectancy
* Infant mortality
* Literacy rate
* Net attendance ratio
* Gross enrolment ratio
* A community also needs public facilities for education and training, affordable healthcare, and provisions for adequate food and nutrition for development.
* Body Mass Index (BMI) is an indicator of a person’s health.
* Countries with lower per-capita income than India have comparable or higher developmental performance on other criteria.
Sustainability of Development
* As more and more development happens, more and more resources get used up.
* The resources used for development may be renewable resources or non-renewable resources.
* We have limited stocks of non-renewable resources that are lost forever once used.
* Renewable resources get restored by nature over a period of time.
* The use of renewable resources faster than what nature can restore can lead to scarcity.
* If development continues at its present pace, there may be a time in future when we may run out of resources and no further development will be possible.
* Sustainability of development involves finding ways for continuous development without the risk of running out of resources or causing irreparable damage to the environment.
Sustainability of development involves:
* More efficient use of existing resources.
* Finding fresh reserves of resources.
* Innovative ideas and technology to use new resources in place of conventional ones.