Difference between revisions of "HDI Graph Reflections"

Revision as of 02:02, 18 September 2006

World Cultures HDI vs Population Graph Reflection 9/17/2006

After I was finished with my HDI versus population graphs, I did not find a very strong correlation between population and HDI. I would guess that population is more dependent on the area of the country. In hindsight, I should have done population density versus HDI. Population density is the number of people in a country divided by the area of it. This would have compensated for having the countries being different size. However, even with population density verses HDI, there still might not have been a trend. One might assume that wealthier societies have more land per person. However, that is not guaranteed. The country might have a lot of farmland or be comprised of mostly cities. However, the difference would be that cities in those countries would be well furnished. However, this would not show up on the population density verses HDI graph. To sum it up, both poor and rich countries can have cities, and both poor and rich countries might have farmland. Farming, however, is not a productive for a country, as industry would be on that land. This again, would be a separate statistic, not represented in the population density versus HDI graph.

However, after the disappointing HDI versus population graph, I added the dominate religion for each country by coloring the countries in different colors. I could see a stronger correlation here. Christian nations seemed to have a higher HDI in relation to Islam and indigenous religions. I am not going to count Japan in this, because it is the only one with Shintoism, its traditional religion. So why do predominately Christian nation have a higher HDI? I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that they are Christian. I believe that they are set apart by their geography and history. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared M. Diamond comments on why Europeans were the most dominate society. He believes that because of the very good temperate climate for growing food in Europe, natives had time to pursue the quest of knowledge. This led them to better agricultural production methods, as well as to war materials and ships. Europeans were then dominate and able to defeat any non-Europeans they wanted to and take their land. Europeans happened to be Christian. A large number of South Africans happened to be converted to Christian. I don’t think they’re doing any better then their non-Christian counterparts. Also, so far, Christians have managed to remain dominate. To explain traditional religions, I guess that these countries have more of a traditional economy. In those, the focus is not making money and raising your standard of living, but maintaining the status quo. These often assign jobs by heredity and caste and technological innovation is discouraged. I don’t know why Islam nation are behind. Maybe they are not able to connect well with the Christian powerhouses. Maybe not. Maybe religion has nothing to do with HDI, and the correlations I saw here were just coincidences. It’s possible.