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You have often heard the words Developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries either in the media, from your friends, or anywhere.
Many might know the meaning, while many don’t fully understand what the words mean or heard it before.
For both categories of individuals, sit back and read through this post. I believe at the end of the post, you would have been equipped with the knowledge, and can distinguish between developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries.
Developed countries
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According to Merriam-Webster
having a relatively high level of industrialization and standard of living
having many large industries and a complex economic system
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A developed country refers to a country with a relatively high level of economic growth and security.
Developing countries
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When they say something is developing, it means it’s still in work, still in action, it is not yet the finished country.
According to Merriam-Webster
having few industries and many poor people who are unable to buy the things they need
growing larger or more advanced Source
So we can conclude that a developing country is a country that is still growing and have combination of both wealthy and poor people, but with the poor people having higher population than the wealthy ones.
Developing countries possess few industries, thereby limiting their manufacturing power, and reducing the citizens income.
Underdeveloped countries
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The word underdeveloped means not up to standard, not up to requirements.
According to Merriam-Webster
having a relatively low economic level of industrial production and standard of living (as from lack of capital) Source
Underdeveloped country is a country that majority of the population are poor. They have extremely few industries, the wealthy people there are very very few. They still live in the ages of manual labour, little or lack of industrialization.
The Common criterias for evaluating a country's degree of development are
- per capita income or gross domestic product (GDP),
- level of industrialization, and
- general standard of living.
Source Source.
Per capita income
Per capita is a Latin word that means by head, Source
Per capita income of a country is the total income of the entire country divided by the country population in a specific year. It is usually measured in United states of America dollars $.
For example a country with a total population of 100,000 citizens, whose total yearly income is $300,000,000 will have a per capita income of $3,000.
To get the per capita income of a country, the entire citizens are counted, to know the population. Then their annual/yearly income are also collected. This is then add together and divided from the population.
According to Worldbank in 2016.
A country with per capita income of US$12,236 or more is said to be developed Source
Level of Industrialisation
It is how industrialised a country is. Moving from the local manual labor to the use of heavy machines, mass production occurs. A country that manufacture in mass quantity and exports to other areas is always tagged Developed.
Basically it is believed that when there are lots of industries that manufacture goods for sale, they will definitely employ workers in their numbers, paying them, the workers in turn use this income to pay for goods and services rendered by other members of the society. This continues over and over again thereby leading to an expansion in wealth and economy of the society.
This will also encourage investors to invest in the society.
General standard of living
The standard of living is the sum total of all material welfare that citizens of a certain country is entitled to.
The material welfare include materialistic things, and safety, wellbeing, and health etc. of a citizen.
Major factors that determine the standard of living of a country includes
- gross domestic product,
- quality and availability of employment,
- income,
- life expectancy,
- poverty rate,
- quality and affordability of housing,
- affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare,
- quality and availability of education,
- cost of goods and services,
- infrastructure,
- political and religious freedom, and
- economic and political stability. Source
Countries that possess high value of this criterias, be it Per capita income, Level of industrialization, and General standard of living are regarded to as Developed countries while countries that possess low values of them are regarded as developing, and countries that lack this criterias are regarded as underdeveloped.
Examples of developed countries include United States of America, England, Canada, Germany etc.
Examples of developing countries include Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and a host of other countries.
Examples of underdeveloped countries are Sudan, Liberia, Bangladesh and a host of others.
I believe by now from my explanations you should be able to distinguish between Developed, Developing, and Underdeveloped countries.
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