Development and Quality of Life

Measuring Development

Income per person

One common measure is GDP per person: the value of everything a country makes in a year, divided by its number of people. A close cousin, GNI per person, also counts income that comes from abroad.

Prices differ from place to place. A haircut or a bus ride costs much less in some countries than in others. So economists use purchasing power parity, or PPP. PPP asks what money can actually buy in each country. It turns every country's income into "international dollars" that buy about the same basket of goods everywhere. The World Bank's International Comparison Program collects the prices.

The Human Development Index

In 1990, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) created the Human Development Index, or HDI. It treats people's lives, not just money, as the goal of development. It combines three parts into one score from 0 to 1.

The latest report, the Human Development Report 2025, uses data from 2023. Iceland ranked first at 0.972. South Sudan ranked last of 193 countries at 0.388. The world average was 0.756. UNDP revises past numbers when it gets better data, so scores can shift between reports.

Other key measures

• Life expectancy: how many years a newborn would live on average if today's death rates stayed the same. The world average was 73.4 years in 2023.
• Literacy: the share of people aged 15 and older who can read and write a simple sentence. UNESCO says about 9 in 10 adults can.
• Under-5 mortality: how many children out of every 1,000 born die before age 5. Many experts see it as one of the clearest signs of health, clean water and care.

The Limits of One Number

Every measure leaves something out. An average can hide big gaps between rich and poor people. Income numbers miss unpaid work, like caring for children or growing food for your family. And none of these numbers measure freedom, safety or how happy people feel.

Compare countries in the table. Each pair has one surprise.

Botswana has a higher income than Viet Nam, but a lower HDI. People in Costa Rica earn about a third as much as people in the United States, yet live longer on average. Money matters a lot. But health care, schools and how fairly income is shared matter too.

How People Earn a Living

Geographers sort jobs into economic sectors:

• Primary: taking things from nature, such as farming, fishing, forestry and mining.
• Secondary: making things, such as factories and construction.
• Tertiary: services, such as stores, transport, health care and teaching.
• Quaternary: work with information and ideas, such as research and software. Many sources count it as part of services.

As countries develop, the mix often shifts. Fewer people farm, and more work in services. Farm machines and better seeds let fewer farmers grow more food.

In South Korea, about 5 percent of workers now farm. In many low-income countries, more than half still do. The shift is a pattern, not a rule. Some countries jump straight from farming to services.

Why Development Differs

No single cause explains why some places have more. Geography can make things harder or easier, but people's choices and history shape the results. Here are factors researchers study:

• Access to the sea. The UN counts 32 landlocked developing countries. Goods must cross other countries to reach a port, which adds cost and delay. Yet Switzerland and Austria are landlocked and wealthy, so being landlocked is a hurdle, not a fate.
• Disease. Malaria caused about 610,000 deaths in 2024, WHO estimates, and 95 percent of them were in the WHO African Region. Illness keeps children out of school and adults out of work. Bed nets, medicine and vaccines can cut that burden.
• Climate. Droughts and floods can wreck harvests where many people farm. Irrigation and stored food make a big difference.
• History. Colonial rulers often built railways to carry raw goods to ports, not to link a country together. Wars can undo years of progress.
• Institutions and education. Fair courts, honest government, peace and good schools help people start businesses and get skills.

These factors work together. A country can face hard geography and still make big gains, as the progress stories below show.

Gaps Inside Countries

A national average can hide big differences between regions, between cities and the countryside and between groups of people.

The UNDP and Oxford's Global Multidimensional Poverty Index looks at health, schooling and living conditions, such as clean water, power and housing. Its 2026 update found about 1.2 billion people living in this kind of poverty in 108 countries. About 83 percent of them live in rural areas. In rural areas, about 29 percent of people are poor in this way. In cities, it is about 7 percent.

Water, Power and School

Basic services change daily life. Clean water prevents disease. Electricity lights homes for homework and keeps medicine cold. School opens doors to better jobs.

• Water. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme says about 2.1 billion people, 1 in 4, lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024. About 106 million drank straight from rivers, lakes or ponds.
• Electricity. About 92 percent of people had electricity in 2023, according to the Tracking SDG7 report by the World Bank, IEA and partners. Still, 666 million did not, and 85 percent of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa. Solar home systems and mini-grids now supply many new connections there.
• School. UNESCO estimates 272 million children and youth were out of school in 2023. In low-income countries, about 36 percent of school-age children were out of school, compared with 3 percent in high-income countries.

These totals are estimates built from surveys and models, so they change when new data arrive.

Progress Stories

Fewer children dying

In 1990, about 94 of every 1,000 children born worldwide died before age 5. By 2024, the rate was about 37, according to UN estimates published by the World Bank. Vaccines, clean water, bed nets and care for newborns all helped. Still, about 4.8 million children died before age 5 in 2023, mostly from causes that can be prevented. Progress has also slowed since 2015.

South Korea

In 1960, South Korea was one of the poorer countries in Asia, still recovering from war. About 113 of every 1,000 children died before age 5, and life expectancy was about 54 years. By 2023, the child death rate was about 3 per 1,000, and life expectancy was about 84. Its HDI of 0.937 now ranks 20th in the world. Experts point to heavy spending on schools, a shift to factory and then high-tech jobs, and trade. They still debate how much each one mattered.

Words Matter

You may hear the phrase "Third World." It comes from the Cold War. A French writer, Alfred Sauvy, used it in 1952 for countries that sided with neither the United States nor the Soviet Union. Over time it came to mean "poor," and many people now find it outdated and insulting. It also lumps very different countries into one group.

Even "developing countries" can mislead, because every country is still developing in some way. In 2016, the World Bank began phasing out "developing world" in its data. It now uses income groups (low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income) and names regions directly. When you can, name the country and the measure: "Niger's life expectancy is 61 years" says more than any label.

Links to Other Units

• Resources and Trade: how countries use and trade their resources.
• Population and Migration: why people move and how populations grow.

Game: Higher or Lower

Each round names a measure and shows one country's number. Guess if the second country is higher or lower. All numbers are 2023 data from the Human Development Report 2025.

Quiz: Development and Quality of Life

Ten questions. Choose one answer for each, then check your score. You can try as many times as you like.

Credits

Written by Marco for Jugami's World Geography course. The diagram and charts are original SVG illustrations made for this page from the data in the sources. Country numbers in the table and game come from the Human Development Report 2025, which uses 2023 data.