Executive Summary
The relationship between a country’s level of development and it’s people’s quality of life, is being analyzed in this work.
It is evident from common macroeconomic theories, that people generally benefit from a country’s continuous development, which in turn, increases the speed of development of that particular country. We consider all the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries, for this project. Detailed empirical analyses were performed to evaluate, whether people’s quality of life actually improved, using thorough measurement metrics.
Through our analysis, we conclude that:
All the countries (in our case, all the BRICS countries) have enjoyed continuous growth, but the global financial crisis, that happened in 2008, made this growth much slower, and for some countries, the growth nearly stopped.
People’s quality of life improved a lot with growth, in each country. Hence it is consistent with our testing hypothesis that people will benefit from a country’s growth and development.
After the global financial crisis of 2008, growth was adversely affected, however, the improvement of people’s lives in each country, didn’t stop.
For some BRICS countries, although they are still categorized as developing countries, but the quality of life of its citizens, improved a lot during these 14 years in terms of several welfare indicators, such as electricity access.
However, there is still room for further improvement compared with other developed countries. For instance, only around half of the population has access to Internet for four out of five BRICS countries. It may be due to the large population base of those countries, however, it is still an indicator that continuous improvement is needed to improve people’s quality of life.
GDP per capita growth (annual %)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion- GDP per capita growth (annual %)
All the BRICS countries have enjoyed continuous growth in these 14 years. However, after the global financial crisis of 2008, the growth rate decreased year by year.
Since all countries have enjoyed a high rate of growth before the crisis, it is expected that people’s quality of life and welfare will improve accordingly. After the crisis, due to slower economic development, it was expected that the improvement in people’s quality of life, may be affected.
Household final consumption expenditure per capita growth (annual %)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion- Household final consumption expenditure per capita growth (annual %)
Household final consumption is an effective indicator measuring the purchasing power of each family, and it is connected closely with macroeconomic development. It is expected that the development of the country will lead to higher purchasing power of its citizens. Comparing pre-crisis (2005-2008) levels with the beginning (around 2000) values, can indicate that expected trend, since the purchasing power has increased for all countries.
Since all countries were affected by the crisis, it is expected that this may have influenced people’s purchasing power as well. The figure confirmed it as well, since growth rate decreased a lot after 2008, and even a negative increase was found for Russia and South Africa in 2009.
Access to electricity (% of population)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion- Access to electricity (% of population)
Over the relevant time-frame of 14 years, all the five BRICS countries have shown a continuously increasing percentage of population with access to electricity.
Percentage of the population with access to electricity reached 100% at this point, for the countries, Brazil, China and Russia. However, there is a small portion of the population in India and South Africa without access to electricity, with the relevant percentage, for India higher than that of South Africa.
Population with access to electricity provides evidence that people’s living conditions are getting better and better. On the other hand, higher rate of electricity access may indicate relatively higher production, which is also reflected on GDP growth, as shown in previous figures.
Individuals using the Internet (% of population)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion- Individuals using the Internet (% of population)
Percentage of individuals using the Internet is continously increasing, whereby, only Russia has a rate above 60%, while all the rest have a rate, below 60%. India has the lowest rate and it grows slowly.
This graph shows similiar trends among the same country. Lowest rate of individuals, using the internet may be related to lowest rate of access to electricity compared with other BRICS countries.
In 2010, internet usage starts to grow rapidly for Russia and South Africa. In 2010, the GDP growth is much higher than that in previous years. Brazil, China and India have a steady growth during the 14 years.
Overall, Internet usage rate has been increasing since 2000.
Renewable electricity output (% of total electricity output) and Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion- Renewable electricity output (% of total electricity output) and Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)
Brazil has the highest renewable energy output percentage and consumption percentage due to its abundant natural resources.
China’s both renewable electricity output percentage and consumption percentage actually decreased over the last two decades, which probably explains high pollution in China.
India’s renewable energy output percentage has slightly increased but its consumption percentage decreased significantly, which probably implies that development comes at the cost of environment.
Russia’s both renewable energy output percentage and consumption percentage have been relatively the same over the last two decades, indicating that, investment in renewable energy is proportional to the growth.
South Africa barely has any renewable energy output but has been able to utilize a steady percentage of renewable energy.
Urban population growth (annual %)
Data Visualization Result and Conclusion-Urban population growth (annual %)
With a booming economy, the urban population growth rate is generally decreasing due to the increasing urban population. Since 2002, the urban population growth rate in Brazil, China, and India has continuously decreased, while the rate has been increasing for Russia and South Africa.
The difference in urban population growth rate might be due to the significant differences in each country’s total population. Brazil, China, and India have a much larger population base than Russia and South Africa.
-Although the population growth is declining, total population still increased significantly.