Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460): Theme 3.1 – Development – Study Guide

This guide covers topic 3.1 Development in Theme 3 (Economic development) of the Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460) syllabus for examination in 2025 and 2026, Version 2 (published November 2022). The syllabus says Paper 1 (Geographical Themes) combines resource-based tasks and free-response writing requiring place-specific information, and Paper 2 (Geographical Skills) can base knowledge questions on any of the three themes. Your teacher will confirm which section of Paper 1 holds the Theme 3 questions.

Use this guide with the Development revision notes and the Development practice questions. The IGCSE Geography hub and the 0460 topic checklist show where this topic sits in the course. Development links closely to birth rates, death rates and population structure, which are covered in Population and Settlement.

Coverage table

Syllabus reference	What you must know or be able to do (from the syllabus)	Where assessed
3.1	Use a variety of indicators to assess the level of development of a country, including GNP per capita, literacy, life expectancy and composite indices, e.g. HDI	Paper 1; data skills also in Paper 2
3.1	Identify and explain inequalities between and within countries	Paper 1
3.1	Classify production into primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors and give illustrations of each	Paper 1
3.1	Describe and explain how the proportions employed in each sector vary according to level of development, comparing countries and change over time	Paper 1; graphs in Paper 2
3.1	Describe and explain the process of globalisation (technology, TNCs, economic factors) and consider its impacts at local, national and global scale	Paper 1
3.1 case study	A transnational corporation and its global links	Paper 1

Indicators of development

Development means improvement in people’s quality of life and standard of living. It has economic, social and political parts. An indicator is a measure you can use to compare levels of development.

Key terms

• GNP (gross national product) per capita: the total value of goods and services produced by a country’s people and businesses in a year, including income earned abroad, divided by the population. The World Bank now uses the very similar term GNI (gross national income).
• Purchasing power parity (PPP): an adjustment to income figures so that they reflect what money can actually buy in each country.
• Adult literacy rate: the percentage of adults who can read and write.
• Life expectancy: the average number of years a person born in a country can expect to live.
• Infant mortality rate: deaths of babies under one year old per 1,000 live births.
• Composite indicator: an index that combines several measures into one number.

The Human Development Index (HDI). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) first published the HDI in 1990. It combines three dimensions: a long and healthy life (life expectancy at birth), knowledge (mean years of schooling for adults aged 25 and over, and expected years of schooling for children) and a decent standard of living (GNI per capita at PPP). The result runs from 0 to 1. UNDP classes 0.800 and above as very high human development, 0.700 to 0.799 as high, 0.550 to 0.699 as medium and below 0.550 as low. In the 2025 Human Development Report, which uses 2023 data, Iceland ranked first at 0.972 and South Sudan last at 0.388. Pakistan scored 0.544, just inside the low group.

Evaluation. A single economic indicator such as GNP per capita is easy to compare, but it is an average. It hides how income is shared, it misses the informal economy and unpaid work, and it says nothing about health or education. A country earning a lot from oil exports can have high GNP per capita while many people lack schooling. Social indicators such as literacy or life expectancy show welfare more directly, but each covers only one part of life. The HDI is stronger because it mixes income, health and education. UNDP itself says the HDI does not reflect inequality, poverty, human security or empowerment. National averages can also hide large gaps between regions, and data in poor or conflict-hit countries may be out of date.

Worked answer paragraph (for “Explain why the HDI may be a better measure of development than GNP per capita”)

GNP per capita only measures average income, while the HDI also includes life expectancy and years of schooling (knowledge). This matters because a country can be rich on average without that wealth reaching most people (application). For example, a country with large oil exports may have a high GNP per capita but low literacy and short lives, so its HDI would be lower and give a truer picture of how people live (analysis). However, the HDI is still a national average, so it can hide big differences between rich cities and poor rural areas (evaluation).

Inequalities between and within countries

Between countries. The Brandt Line, associated with the 1980 Brandt Report (North–South: A Programme for Survival), divides a richer “North” from a poorer “South”. Today geographers prefer terms such as high-income countries (HICs) and low-income countries (LICs), because many countries, such as China, have moved up the scale.

Reasons for inequality between countries:

• Physical factors: landlocked position, drought, poor soils, tropical diseases and natural hazards can limit farming, trade and health.
• Historical factors: colonialism often left economies dependent on exporting raw materials.
• Trade: many LICs export primary products whose prices are low and change a lot, while they import more expensive manufactured goods.
• Debt: interest repayments use money that could pay for schools and hospitals.
• Conflict and governance: war and corruption destroy infrastructure and scare away investment.
• Investment and technology: HICs have capital, skilled workers and research, which attract more investment.

Within countries. Inequality inside a country is often a core-periphery pattern. The core region, often the capital or a coastal area with ports, attracts investment, jobs and services. The periphery, often remote, rural or mountainous, has fewer jobs and services, and young people move away. In China, eastern coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangsu gained most early foreign investment after the economic reforms, while western interior provinces such as Gansu and Guizhou have remained poorer. There are also gaps between rural and urban areas and between men and women.

Evaluation. Physical factors matter, but they are not destiny: some resource-poor places have grown quickly through trade and education. Gaps within countries can be as large as gaps between them, so using national averages alone gives a weak answer.

Worked answer paragraph (for “Explain why there are inequalities within a country”)

Inequalities develop because investment tends to collect in a core region (knowledge). In a coastal capital, ports, airports and a large market attract factories and offices, so jobs and wages rise (application). This creates a cycle: better-paid workers pay more tax, which funds schools and hospitals, which attracts more firms, while young people leave rural areas and those areas fall further behind (analysis). Government spending on roads and services in the periphery can reduce the gap, but it rarely closes it quickly (evaluation).

Sectors of production

Sector	Meaning	Illustrations
Primary	Extracting raw materials from the land or sea	Farming, fishing, forestry, mining, quarrying
Secondary	Processing raw materials and manufacturing goods	Car assembly, steel making, food processing, textile and shoe factories, construction
Tertiary	Providing services to people and businesses	Teaching, health care, retail, transport, banking, tourism
Quaternary	Knowledge-based services: research, information and expertise	Software design, scientific research and development, data analysis, consultancy

The syllabus names all four sectors, so learn all four. Be precise with jobs: a farmer is primary, a worker canning fruit is secondary, a lorry driver moving the cans is tertiary, and a scientist developing a new crop variety is quaternary.

Employment structure and level of development

Employment structure is the percentage of the workforce in each sector. It changes as a country develops, in a pattern often linked with the economists Allan Fisher and Colin Clark (the Clark–Fisher model):

1. Low level of development: most people work in primary jobs, mainly farming, often subsistence. Secondary and tertiary sectors are small.
2. Industrialising: farming is mechanised, so fewer farm workers are needed. People move to towns to work in factories. Secondary employment grows, and tertiary grows too.
3. High level of development: tertiary and quaternary jobs dominate. Secondary employment falls because of automation and because manufacturing moves to countries with lower costs (deindustrialisation). Primary employment is very small.

Why the proportions change: mechanisation of farming; rising incomes, so people spend more on services such as health, education and leisure; better education, which creates skilled workers for quaternary jobs; and globalisation, which moves factory work to lower-cost countries.

Using indicators together. The syllabus asks you to use indicators of development and employment structure to compare countries and change over time. A high percentage in farming usually goes with low GNP per capita, high infant mortality and lower literacy. Practise reading pie charts, divided bar graphs and triangular graphs.

Evaluation. The model fits the history of countries such as the UK well. It fits less well elsewhere. Some countries have grown through services without a large factory stage; India’s growth in IT and business services is a well-known example. In many lower-income cities, a large tertiary share is made up of informal jobs such as street selling, which are low-paid and insecure, so a large tertiary sector does not always mean high development.

Worked skills example. In a fictional Country Z, primary employment fell from 55% in 1990 to 25% in 2020, secondary stayed at 20% then rose to 25%, and tertiary rose from 25% to 50%.

Primary employment fell by 30 percentage points while tertiary employment doubled, from 25% to 50% (knowledge, using data). This suggests farming was mechanised and that rising incomes increased demand for services (application). As people moved from farms to towns, more found jobs in shops, transport and offices, showing Country Z is developing (analysis). However, part of the tertiary rise may be informal work, so other indicators such as GNP per capita would be needed to confirm this (evaluation).

Globalisation

Globalisation is the process by which the world’s economies, cultures and people become more connected and dependent on one another through trade, investment, technology and the movement of people and ideas.

The role of technology

• Transport: container shipping cut the cost of moving goods. The Ideal X, adapted by Malcom McLean, carried 58 containers from Port Newark, New Jersey, to Houston, Texas, in 1956. Jet aircraft move people and high-value goods quickly.
• Communications: the internet, mobile phones and video calls let a firm manage factories, designers and customers on different continents in real time.

The role of transnational corporations (TNCs). A TNC is a company that operates in more than one country. Many keep headquarters and research in an HIC and place factories or suppliers where costs are lower, and they sell worldwide. Their investment moves money, technology and jobs across borders.

Economic factors

• Cheap labour and land in many lower-income countries.
• Trade liberalisation: lower tariffs and the World Trade Organization (WTO), set up on 1 January 1995.
• Government incentives, such as special economic zones. China set up its first special economic zones in 1980, with Shenzhen the best known.
• Growing markets in emerging economies, where more people can afford consumer goods.

Impacts at different scales

Scale	Positive impacts	Negative impacts
Local	New jobs and regular wages; new skills; better roads and services near factories	Low wages, long hours and unsafe conditions; pollution; loss of farmland; jobs lost when a factory closes
National	Foreign investment; export earnings; tax income; technology transfer	Profits leave the country; dependence on a few foreign firms; competition can close local businesses
Global	Cheaper goods; more trade; spread of ideas	Widening gaps between people; carbon emissions from long supply chains; deindustrialisation in older industrial regions of HICs

Evaluation. Globalisation has helped some countries grow fast, for example in East and South-East Asia. Its benefits are uneven: TNCs can move when costs rise, and the poorest countries attract little investment. Whether it is good or bad depends on the place, the group of people and the time scale.

Case study: Nike, a TNC and its global links

These figures come from Nike’s annual report (Form 10-K) for the financial year ending 31 May 2026.

• Headquarters: Nike’s global headquarters, the Philip H. Knight Campus near Beaverton, Oregon, USA, employs about 10,600 people in management, research, design, marketing and finance. Regional headquarters are in Hilversum, the Netherlands (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Shanghai, China (Greater China).
• Manufacturing: nearly all Nike products are made by independent contract manufacturers, not by Nike itself. In 2026, 95 footwear factories in 11 countries made Nike Brand footwear; factories in Vietnam, Indonesia and China made about 52%, 27% and 16% of it. Apparel (clothing) came from 321 factories in 34 countries, led by Vietnam, Cambodia and China.
• Components: Nike’s own subsidiary makes Air-Sole cushioning near Beaverton, in St. Charles, Missouri, and in Dong Nai, Vietnam.
• Distribution and markets: Nike has major distribution centres in Memphis, Tennessee, and in Laakdal (Belgium), Taicang (China), Tomisato (Japan) and Icheon (South Korea). About 56% of revenue came from outside the United States. Total revenue was about US$46.4 billion, and Nike employed about 73,000 people.

Why this pattern? High-value, knowledge-based work (design, research, marketing) stays in the USA. Labour-intensive sewing and assembly is done in Asia, where wages are lower and large, skilled factory workforces exist. Container shipping and digital communication link the two.

Impacts. Factory jobs in Vietnam and Indonesia provide regular wages and export earnings. In the 1990s, Nike was heavily criticised over low pay and poor conditions in contractor factories in countries including Indonesia, and over child labour in the stitching of footballs in Pakistan. Nike introduced codes of conduct, factory audits and later published its supplier list, now shown on its online Manufacturing Map. Critics argue that monitoring cannot fully control conditions in factories Nike does not own.

Evaluation. Nike shows the “global shift” of manufacturing clearly, but because it owns few factories, the profits and high-paid jobs mostly stay in the USA. If you use Nike in Paper 1, name specific countries, numbers and impacts, not just “Asia” and “cheap labour”.

Common errors

• Writing “GNP” when the question says “GNP per capita”. The total says nothing about individual living standards.
• Saying the HDI includes literacy. Since 2010 it uses years of schooling.
• Classifying construction or food processing as primary. Both are secondary.
• Describing employment change without quoting figures and the years compared.
• Explaining globalisation only as “cheap labour”. Include technology, trade rules and markets.
• Giving impacts only at one scale when the question asks for local, national and global.
• Naming a TNC but giving no specific places, numbers or links.

For practice with data and extended answers, try the Development practice questions, then see Industry for manufacturing location and the Population and Settlement revision notes for population links.

Official syllabus

Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460) syllabus for examination in 2025 and 2026, Version 2 (published November 2022), Theme 3: Economic development, topic 3.1 Development.