Tim Lankester
Pages 131-153
DOI: 10.5840/cultura20052211
ABSTRACT
It is a commonplace that economic and social progress in developing countries since the Second World War has been faster than in any comparable period in history. There have been large improvements in incomes, in literacy, in health and in life expectancy. Hundreds of millions have been taken out of a grinding poverty to which in eatlier eras they would have been consigned. Yet there still remain over one billion people, almost a fifth of the world’s population, in absolute poverty — that is to say, living on less than one US dollar a day (at 1985 international prices adjusted for purchasing power parity) and suffering from undernourishment and much else. The incidence of absolute poverty has certainly fallen; but because of rising population, the total number of poor people has not changed very much.” Global income inequality may or may not have increased. What is certain is that the income gaps in the world economy remain enormous.”