GDP per person instead of GDP per capita

[Ocham]

Can I use "per person" in the place of "per capita" in the sentence below?
I don't want to use "capita" because Japanese (high school) students are
not required to learn the word in their curriculum.

As the graph indicates, China's GDP per person is substantially lower than that of
the US, Japan, France and Germany.

 

[Oeco]

Makes senses to me. "Capita" of course, just means "head." I don't think you would want to say "Per head". They might ask about the other parts of the body.

 

[boozer]

Use per capita or per head - those are the two established options I am aware of. (Even with the risk of somebody asking about the other parts of the body )

 

[Oeco]

But Japanese High School students might not understand "per head." That would Ocham's call I guess. I note that wikipedia uses "per person" to explain the meaning of "per capita" using the definition at dictionary.com.

 

[Ocham]

Thank you very much, both of you for your very kind instruction.

 

[morzh]

"Per capita" is, I think, the most popular form (the only one I ever hear on radio/TV), and "per head / per person" may be used as explanations, but I never heard those used otherwise.

 

[JulianStuart]

I suspect there is a small list of English words in that Japanese curriculum, in parallel to the small list of Kanji (Chinese characters) that are in the curriculum (and many thousands that are not in the curriculum). Therefore, capita cannot be used in an English class for them. The "normal English" collocation with GDP of "per capita" cannot therefore be used so a substitute is needed. "Per person" is the simplest to convey the sense.

 

[boozer]

But Japanese High School students might not understand "per head."

You may be right, but that is part of the learning process.

In fact, whether they would understand it or not will depend on the Japanese language and way of thinking. Both in Bulgarian and English the head is very often taken to stand for the whole body/person/cow etc. I expect the same would be true in most European languages. Would that be true for Japanese as well? I don't have a clue. The fact is that any Bulgarian student of average intelligence would be able to understand this (per head meaning per person) because of the similar (European?) way of thinking... In any case, even a beginner knows the word "head".

 

[boozer]

"Per capita" is, I think, the most popular form (the only one I ever hear on radio/TV), and "per head / per person" may be used as explanations, but I never heard those used otherwise.

I have heard 'per head' many times, particularly because I have read most of my economics in English. The BNC produces 30 examples:

http://bnc.bl.uk/saraWeb.php?qy=GDP+per+head&mysubmit=Go