Life expectancy is the expected number of years someone in a particular place is projected to live. It is measured in years. Life expectancy is a food indicator of economic development because it provides a look into how a place fights diseases and deals with health issues. Many factors contribute to life expectancy including health care and the economy of a place making it a good way to look into economic development. The amount of internet users measures how many people use the internet out of every 100. The internet is an important piece of technology which helps places stay interconnected regardless of the space between them making it a good indication of economic development. Infant mortality rate measures the number of infants under the age of 1 that die per year per 1,000 live births. It is a good indicator of economic development because it displays a country's health care system, their ability to fight diseases, and other causes of death like malnutrition, which can be caused by poor economic development. GDP per capita measures the average income per person in a place in U.S. dollars. This is an important category because income is significant when determining economic development.
On the first graph in general, more developed countries are in the upper right corner and they get less developed as you move down and to the left. The group in the upper right consists of countries from many different regions across the world; U.S. and Canada from North America, many European countries, South Korea, Japan, Qatar, and many others. The less developed side of the scale mostly consists of Asian, African, and some South American countries. The biggest outlier in this data was Qatar because it is a very prosperous country from a region that has not had as much success. While Qatar has a large number of internet users and a high life expectancy, most of the countries in the Middle-East have a long ways to go to catch up to Qatar economically. Another outlier on this graph is Cuba because it has such a high life expectancy but a low number of internet users compared to other countries with the same life expectancy. While Cuba has the same life expectancy as the U.S., the U.S. has 55 more users of the internet out of 100 people. This statistic makes Cuba unique because it does not show the direct correlations between the two statistics. The second graphic illustrates how average income is not the only statistic that matters when it comes to economic development. Some Middle-Eastern countries such as Qatar have very high average incomes but their infant mortality rate is not nearly as low as some European countries. This graph proves that although GDP per capita is important, there are many other factors like infant mortality rate that determine economic development.
From 1981-2011 in the first gapminder, life expectancy and the average number of internet users both increase significantly. Life expectancy increases steadily the whole time especially in less developed countries that began much lower that the more developed countries. It increases because of improvements in medicine, technology, scientific knowledge, health care, and sanitation. In some countries such as Rwanda, where the life expectancy drops very low for a short period of time, they most likely experienced a civil war or maybe natural disasters in other countries. The increase in the number of internet users occurs around the year 2000 in developed countries. This is the time when the internet began diffusing through hierarchical diffusion starting in the core and is now starting to diffuse to the semi-periphery and periphery. This number increases very rapidly but slows down as they near the maximum number of users out of 100. The second gapminder graph began with just a few countries in 1800 but started growing as more countries started to record this data. As countries develop in this cycle, their GDP per capita goes up and their infant mortality rate goes down. The increase in GDP per capita is because of higher waged jobs as people in developing countries move out of the primary sector and into the secondary or tertiary. This transition would not be possible without the industrial revolution (2nd agricultural revolution/2nd urban revolution) which helped farmers to grow a surplus of food which allowed other people to get different jobs in the city. The decrease in a country's infant mortality rate over time is attributed to medical and technological advances that help with diseases, malnutrition, and the birthing process. As countries gain capital, they are able to afford better health care, better health education, and better medicine. Therefore as a country develops and gains more capital, their infant mortality rate goes down because of the ability to fund better health care.
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