Post-industrial society in the context of "Developed countries"

Work or labour (labor in American English) is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, and/or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the human activity that contributes (along with other factors of production) towards the goods and services within an economy.

Work has existed in all human societies, either as paid or unpaid work, from gathering natural resources by hand in hunter-gatherer groups to operating complex technologies that substitute for physical or even mental effort within an agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society. One's regular participation or role in work is an occupation, or job. All but the simplest tasks in any work require specific skills, tools, and other resources, such as material for manufacturing goods. Humanity has developed a variety of institutions for group coordination of work, such as government programs, nonprofit organizations, cooperatives, and corporations.

Preston (/ˈprɛstən/ ) is a city on the north bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, in North West England. The city is the administrative centre of the county of Lancashire and the wider City of Preston local government district. Preston and its surrounding district obtained city status in 2002, becoming England's 50th city in the 50th year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Preston had a population of 147,835 at the 2021 census, the City of Preston district 156,411 in 2023 and the Preston Built-up Area 313,322. The Preston Travel To Work Area, in 2011, had a population of 420,661, compared with 354,000 at the previous census. The south bank of the Ribble is part of the Preston urban area, although it forms the South Ribble borough that is administratively separate.

Preston and its surrounding area have provided evidence of ancient Roman activity, largely in the form of a Roman road that led to a camp at Walton-le-Dale. The Angles established Preston; its name is derived from the Old English meaning "priest's settlement" and in the Domesday Book is recorded as "Prestune". In the Middle Ages, Preston was a parish and township in the hundred of Amounderness and was granted a Guild Merchant charter in 1179, giving it the status of a market town. Textiles have been produced since the mid-13th century when locally produced wool was woven in people's houses. Flemish weavers who settled in the area in the 14th century helped develop the industry. In the early-18th century, Edmund Calamy described Preston as "a pretty town with an abundance of gentry in it, commonly called Proud Preston". Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning frame, was born in the town. The most rapid period of growth and development coincided with the industrialisation and expansion of textile manufacturing. Preston was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, becoming a densely populated engineering centre, with large industrial plants. The town's textile sector fell into terminal decline from the mid-20th century and Preston has subsequently faced similar challenges to other post-industrial northern towns, including deindustrialisation, economic deprivation and housing issues.

A developed country, or advanced country, is a country that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are the gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Different definitions of developed countries are provided by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; moreover, HDI ranking is used to reflect the composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. In 2025, 40 countries fit all three criteria, while an additional 22 countries fit two out of three.

Developed countries have generally more advanced post-industrial economies, meaning the service sector provides more wealth than the industrial sector. They are contrasted with developing countries, which are in the process of industrialisation or are pre-industrial and almost entirely agrarian, some of which might fall into the category of Least Developed Countries. As of 2023, advanced economies comprise 57.3% of global GDP based on nominal values and 41.1% of global GDP based on purchasing-power parity (PPP) according to the IMF.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages also the variety of spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature, academia, print and mass media, and law and legislation, though it is generally not spoken as a first language, similar to Contemporary Latin. It is a pluricentric standard language taught throughout the Arab world in formal education, differing significantly from many vernacular varieties of Arabic that are commonly spoken as mother tongues in the area; these are only partially mutually intelligible with both MSA and with each other depending on their proximity in the Arabic dialect continuum.

Many linguists consider MSA to be distinct from Classical Arabic (CA; اللغة العربية الفصحى التراثية al-Lughah al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā at-Turāthīyah) – the written language prior to the mid-19th century – although there is no agreed moment at which CA turned into MSA. There are also no agreed set of linguistic criteria which distinguish CA from MSA; however, MSA differs most markedly in that it either synthesizes words from Arabic roots (such as سيارة car (Sayyārah) or باخرة steamship (Bākhirah)) or adapts words from foreign languages (such as ورشة workshop (Warshah) or إنترنت Internet (Inṭirnēt)) to describe industrial and post-industrial life.