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June 29, 2010
GDP and Life Expectancy Animated
By Cindy Ivanac-Lillig
Have you ever taken a class in economic development? During the first few sessions, the class is usually instructed to explore the relationship between economic and human development. It may sound elementary, but why study economics and economic growth unless you can determine that it improves the human experience. There are usually some students in the class that tend to be more anthropologically-minded and are cautious of emphasizing economic growth. They worry about the loss of value that we aren't trained to analyze such as the loss of traditional livelihoods and weakened social capital. However, the class is eventually shepherded around to the idea that there just isn’t much reliable data available for all the different aspects of human development and one of the strongest relationships that can be observed is GDP per capita and a handful of different (albeit flawed) measures of human development. The understanding that GDP is at least a strong indicator of economic and human development allows the class to move on to more complex topics.
Today, I ran across a short animation that shows the progression over the last 200 years of both per capita income and life expectancy throughout the world. It is pretty interesting and teaches a lot in a matter of seconds about economic development. For all the students currently enrolled in an economic development class, increasing GDP per capita didn't necessarily lead to longer life expectancy, but it certainly seemed to have helped! I don't think the video can replace the first few classes’ worth of discussion, but it is striking.
Check it out here: GAPMINDER
Videos to explain graphical relationships over time works for me… What do you all think?
Posted by Cindy at June 29, 2010 9:24 PM
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Comments
Thanks for the share
Posted by: {Angie at October 30, 2011 2:05 AM
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