Why the Gap Exists: Causes and Consequences of Uneven Development

Three causes on three timescales

You already know how development is measured, and why a single number such as income per head cannot describe a country on its own. You also know a model of how population changes as a country develops. What neither of those tells you is why the gap is there in the first place, and that is what this part of the specification asks. It names three kinds of cause: physical, economic and historical. The useful thing to notice is that they are not three items on one list, because they work over completely different lengths of time. Physical factors set the starting conditions, and they were in place before anybody arrived. Historical factors set the trajectory, over centuries. Economic factors keep the situation running, year by year, now. That is why a country cannot simply decide to be developed, and it is also why the consequences you have to know are not a separate topic: disparities in wealth and health, and the movement of people, follow from those causes rather than sitting alongside them.

Words for the gap

Five terms this part of the topic needs. None of them is a measure: you have those already.

Sort the factor by its kind

Which kind of cause is this

A country earns most of its income from one crop, and the price of that crop is set on world markets rather than by the country itself. What kind of factor is that, and why?

• Economic, because it concerns what the country trades and the price it receives now
• Physical, because the crop grows there for climatic reasons
• Historical, because the crop was introduced long ago
• None of the three: it is simply bad luck

Where it started and why it lasts

It is worth separating two questions that sound the same. Why did a gap open? And why has it not closed? The three cause-types answer them differently, and a good answer says which question it is answering.

Which two are consequences

Your specification distinguishes causes of uneven development from its consequences. Select the TWO that are consequences.

• People in some countries can expect to live in poorer health than people in others
• People move internationally in search of work and safety
• A country has no coastline, so its trade must cross other countries
• A country repays debt taken on decades ago

The cause that is not on the map

Physical factors are easy to see and easy to write about. Historical factors are the ones candidates most often leave out, and your specification names them, so an answer without them is incomplete rather than tactful. The central historical factor is colonisation. Over several centuries, European powers took political control of much of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas, and reorganised the economies of those territories around what the controlling power wanted: raw materials extracted and shipped out, borders drawn for administrative convenience rather than around existing communities, and processing, manufacturing and profit kept elsewhere. Millions of people were also transported and enslaved, which is a fact about this history and not an aside to it. What matters geographically is the mechanism rather than the moral verdict, and the mechanism is that economic relationships established then did not end when political control did. A country whose infrastructure was built to move goods to a port rather than between its own cities still has that infrastructure. Historians and economists disagree about how much of today’s gap this explains compared with more recent factors, and your answers should say so: write that many argue, or that it is widely held, rather than stating a single settled figure. What is not in dispute is that it belongs in the explanation.

Naming the three kinds

Your specification names three kinds of cause. _____ factors come from the land itself, such as climate, relief and whether a country has a coastline, and they set the starting conditions. _____ factors come from the past, above all colonisation, and they set the direction of travel. _____ factors operate now: what a country trades, the price it receives, and what it owes. The consequences the specification names are disparities in wealth and _____, and international _____, both of which follow from those causes rather than standing apart from them.

The sentence that blames the country

Four sentences from an answer about uneven development. Select the ONE that stops explaining and starts blaming.

• Dependence on a single export leaves a country exposed when world prices fall.
• Unreliable rainfall makes farming yields harder to predict from year to year.
• These countries have simply failed to organise themselves properly.
• Many argue that colonial trading patterns continued to shape economies long after independence.

From cause to consequence

Put this chain into the order in which the links follow one another, from underlying cause to final consequence.

• A country depends on exporting a few raw materials whose prices it does not set
• When world prices fall, national income falls with them
• Less money is available to spend on healthcare and schools
• Health and education outcomes fall behind those in wealthier countries
• Disparities in wealth and health between countries widen
• Some people move internationally in search of work, safety or treatment

Explaining a gap fairly

A question asks you to explain the causes and consequences of uneven development. Here is an answer that would score well. Uneven development has causes working over different lengths of time. Physical factors set the starting conditions: a country with unreliable rainfall, poor soils or no coastline faces costs that a country without those problems does not, and none of that was chosen. Historical factors set the direction: colonisation reorganised economies around extraction and export, drew borders for administrative convenience, and kept processing and profit elsewhere, and many argue that those trading patterns outlasted political control. Economic factors keep the gap open now: dependence on a few exports whose prices are set elsewhere, debt repayments that take money which could have been invested, and value added abroad rather than at home. The consequences follow from those causes. Disparities in wealth mean less is spent on healthcare and education, which produces disparities in health and in opportunity, and those in turn help explain international migration, as people move towards work, safety or treatment that is not available where they are. Notice four things about that answer. It uses the specification’s own three categories. It explains a mechanism in each case rather than listing conditions. It attributes the contested part instead of asserting it. And it treats migration as a consequence to be explained, not an argument to be had.

Writing about it carefully

Assemble a sentence about historical factors that explains without overclaiming.

Answering an exam question on the gap

A question asks you to explain why some countries are far wealthier than others. Take the decisions in order.

• How should you structure the answer?
• You want to include historical factors. What is the safest and strongest way to do it?
• You need a figure to support a point, but you cannot remember one. What should you do?
• The question also asks about consequences. How should migration be treated?

Explain why the gap exists

Explain the causes of uneven development and its consequences, using the categories your specification names.

• Explain two physical factors and say what each one costs a country
• Explain what historical factors means, and describe one mechanism by which the past still affects economies
• Attribute any contested claim rather than stating it as settled
• Explain two economic factors that keep a gap open in the present
• Explain the difference between why a gap opened and why it has not closed
• Explain the consequences for wealth and for health, linking them to each other
• Explain why international migration is a consequence of those disparities
• Finish without blaming any country for its own situation, and without treating any population as passive