Gapminder Screencast and Analysis

Variable Set 1- As life expectancy rises so does GDP per capita

Variable Set 2- As life expectancy rises children per woman declines.

Part 1
a. In set 1 life expectancy in years rises as the gross domestic income per capita in dollars, which is the total value of goods and services produced in a country divided by it's population, rises. In set 2 Life expectancy in years rises as the average number of children per woman declines.

b. Life expectancy provides insight into economic development because, as shown in the Demographic Transition model, when countries go through the industrial revolution and people start to make more money the life expectancy goes up also. GDP per capita directly gives insight into economic development because if the GDP goes up people have to be making more money on average. The Demographic Transition model also displays why children per woman would provide insight to economic development because in the model as the country experiences economic development the average number of children per woman goes down. Also if there are fewer people fighting for jobs and resources more money will be made.

Part 2
a. North America, Western Europe since 1800 have been two of the most developed regions with Asia following close behind. Africa since 1800 for the most part has always been last in development. As far as the most developed country the U.K. initially was the leader until the U.S. passed it, only to be passed by Kuwait and Qatar in the 1940's. In recent years China has made great leaps from being near the African in the early 1900's to now being close to the far more developed South America countries. Every Continent has it's outlier though. Africa has Seychelles which is fairly close to the top and the Middle East has Qatar which has the highest GDP per capita.

b. One of the main reasons for the economic development of a country is whether or not they are resource rich. An example of this is Qatar. The had a relatively low GDP per capita until oil became an important resource. They then rapidly moved from from the bottom of the pack to having the highest GDP per capita where they remain today. As the amount of interconnectedness a place has increases they will generally have more income from trade and learn about new innovations faster causing them to develop more rapidly. One regional disparity is Africa. Some reasons for this are because they have relatively few resources, they were colonized, and are not connected to the rest of the world. There are many theories for why certain countries are more developed which shows that there is no simple explanation for economic development of a country.