1. Comparing Canada to the World
Standard of Living
Comparing Canada to the World

2. Let’s Get Started What is sooo good about those countries??
On a piece of paper, jot down the following:
TOP 5 Countries you would like to live in.
BOTTOM 5 Countries that you would not like to live in.
Next step:
For what reasons did you select your top 5??
What is sooo good about those countries??
For what reasons did you select your bottom 5??
Why is there no way you would want to live in those countries?

3. PLO’s – Human Geography
Compare Canada’s Standard of Living with those of developing countries, with reference to poverty and key indicators of human development
Specifically, what indicators are used by the UN to measure Living Standards
Also, what can be done to improve standards (life expectancy, etc.)

4. The UN Human Development Report Figure 14-1, pg. 341, Fig. 14-2, pg
An index that ranks countries on three measures: adult literacy, life expectancy and per capita GDP
GDP is total value of all goods and services produced in a country in one year
Divide that number by a country’s population and you have per capita GDP
This report is a crude indicator of levels of economic and social development – countries that rank high are developed and affluent (low rank equals poor development and growth)

6. Developed Nations
This term refers to nations that are industrialized, with their people well-housed, healthy, and educated
Well developed infrastructure such as communication and transportation systems, electrical grid, schools and hospitals
DEVELOPING countries lack modern infrastructure and industry

7. Comparing Living Standards (Food PPT!)
Difficult to do sometimes
Non-monetary transactions are difficult to trace – this makes measuring economic output in developing countries difficult
Wealth can be unevenly distributed – ie. Saudi Arabia with mega-rich and extreme poor – skews statistics
Quality of life includes health (infant mortality, etc), nutrition, status of women – these are supplied by gov’ts of wealthy nations, not in the poor – hard to account for

8. Poverty
Estimates are controversial, but some measures suggest that ~1.3 billion people live below the poverty line (in the Developing World that equates to earning less than $1 per day)
The poverty line is different in Canada, due to greater cost of living – here we measure by people having to spend more than 56% of their income on life’s necessities
Figure estimated that 5.1 million Canadians were in this category

9. Developing World Poverty
Greatly related to inability to purchase food
Also, debt is a major problem
The debts of these nations are linked to loans that were granted – western nations wanted to help these countries develop their infrastructure – dams, highways, etc
However, many developing countries have been unable to repay these debts, and now payments on these debts take up huge amounts of budgets – money that can’t be spent on education, health, development programs, etc

10. Poverty Cycle See p. 347 text for detailed version
On a basic level, poor healthcare and nutrition leads to developmental difficulties, which causes problems in literacy and academic progress
This leads to reduced ability to be successful in the workplace, leading to poor wages, poor diet and health, young marriage often occurs as well, with poor job prospects
Families are forced into debt and poverty, leading to malnourished babies, completing the cycle
The key to breaking this cycle is improved education and nutrition/healthcare

11. Solutions
Since WWII, the developed world has been providing aid (money, etc) to the developing world
Aid is dwarfed by military expenditures however
Comes in a variety of forms
Multilateral Aid: funded by a number of gov’ts, usually for large scale projects
Tied Aid: conditions are attached, like purchasing goods from certain companies, etc
Aid is received from many sources: UN, CIDA and NGO’s like Oxfam and Rotary