The Global Shift Creates Winners and Losers for People and the Environment (Edexcel A-Level Geography): Revision Notes

The Global Shift Creates Winners and Losers for People and the Environment

The Global Shift

🔗 The combined impacts of off-shoring and outsourcing

•                                                                                 The Global Shift*
  

Benefits and drawbacks of The Global Shift - Host countries

Benefits

Drawbacks

● Investment in infrastructure ● Increased amounts of waged work ● Less informal employment ● Reduction in poverty ● Improved education and training ● Governments gain ↑ income w/ ↑ in levels of personal taxation ● Population better connected eg. through the internet

● Loss of productive farmland as urban areas expand ● Rapid rural-urban migration, leading to urban sprawl ● Shanty towns as much of the outward growth of cities is unplanned and informal ● Degradation of natural environment as ↑ pollution from industry etc ● Sweatshop industries • low wage & bad working conditions ● Pressure on resources ● Due to poor governance, some investments are poorly planned and located ● Westernisation • traditional culture declines

Benefits and Drawbacks of The Global Shift - Source Countries

Benefits	Drawbacks
● Restructuring of industry = changes in employment types ● Lower levels of industrial pollution ● Declining populations in some city regions ∴ ↓ pressure on services ● Investment in training and skills • trying to 'future proof' the workforce	● Deindustrialisation on a large scale = unemployment ● Increasing levels of dereliction • abandoned factories ● ↑ in poverty levels w/in urban areas ● ↑ in urban unrest w/ some forms of crime ↑ as people feel left behind

Environmental Issues in Developing Countries & Their Impact on Health

• ↑ Energy demands from industry = more power stations & ∴ pollution
• Resources in developing countries are exploited - land, raw materials, water
• Dumping of pollutants from factories - impact on water and land
• Clearance of open spaces = ↓ biodiversity

Impact on Health

• Waste pollutes water, making it unsafe to drink, risk of waterborne disease
• Poor living conditions
• Poor working conditions w/ bad health & safety regulations

Deindustrialisation

The decline of regionally important manufacturing industries. Decline can be classified in terms of workforce, output and production measures

Social & environmental problems for deindustrialised regions

The Main Challenges Include

• High unemployment
• Crime
• Depopulation (brain drain)
• Dereliction
• Contamination (old waste from industry left to decay and eventually leaks into local environment)