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Aspects of Development (Education (However, their are arguments against…
Aspects of Development
Education
Sen argues that development is not possible without education and that it was a major key in the development of Asian Tiger countries.
However, their are arguments against universal education as a priority, for example limited resources, other priorities, economic growth first, education can make people more rebellious etc.
Schools in developing countries also have other problems such as overcrowded classrooms, lack of national curriculum, lack of available buildings, limited amount of schools, poor attendance in higher education, ethnocentric curriculum etc.
Girls are less likely to receive an education in the developing world due to traditional values, young wives, prioritising education for men and girls needing to look after the family.
Children from poorer families are less likely to receive an education in the developing world due to school fees, children needing to work to support their family and uneducated parents not prioritising education.
Employment
- According to the World Development Report more than 3 billion people in the world have jobs, but these vary greatly.
- Employment in the developing world is divided into a two-sector economy; formal and informal.
- Formal jobs tend to involve large businesses with fairly stable employment, regular hours & wages. It only caters for a minority of the developing world.
- Informal jobs involve more casual and irregular work, often intensive and unregulated. This includes illegal work such as in the drug trade and sex work.The International labour organisation found more than 1/2 of workers in the developing world were trapped in informal sector jobs, with 397 million workers were living in extreme poverty.
Women are particularly difficult situation when it comes to employment in developing countries. This could be due to a lack of equal rights, lack of contraception, lack of education, patriarchal societies etc.
- Feminists believe in the marginalisation thesis, which thinks that many women are marginalised (excluded) from the work place and are restricted to the home.
- The Feminist exploitation thesis is the concept that when women are working they are exploited, e.g. in the informal sector through sex work, and in the formal sector through employers. Leonard stated that TNC's are more likely to employ women as they are easier to exploit. For example, 1/3 of the 100,000 sex workers in Cambodia are under the age of 18.
- Workers in TNC's face many problems and exploitation, such as lack of health and safety, poor wages (Nike pay $1 a day), long working hours, abusive employers, child labour and no worker rights.
- In 2000 the ILO found there were 246 million child labourers.
Health
- HDI is used to monitor and measure social development, which examines the healthcare, and several sustainable development goals are health related., such as to eradicate poverty and improve health and well-being.
- Obesity is a rising issue in the developing world. This could be due to higher incomes and a fall in the cost of food, inactive lifestyles and increased reliance on, and availability of, fast, processed food.
- This could be due to the increased spread of Western values.
Healthcare in Cuba:
- Cuba, despite being a developing country, has overcome many obstacles to provide its people with excellent healthcare. For example, extremely limited resources, and dramatic economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., like refusal for trade.
- Cuba has benefited the health of other developing societies, for example by sending doctors throughout the 3rd world to treat the poor. Over 30,000 Cuban medical staff working in over 60 countries in the world. They also provided malaria vaccination in over 15 West African countries.
- Cuba's infant mortality rate is 4.2 per thousand births - which is lower than the U.S.A.and amongst the lowest in the world.
- Life expectancy in Cuba is 78, 30 years longer than their Haitian neighbours.
- Their healthcare system is based on preventive healthcare, as the widely used curative model is less effective and more expensive.
- Despite progress being made, there are still many obstacles the developing world needs to overcome:
- Half a million women die each year due to pregnancy and childbirth, and of these deaths 99% are in the developing world.
- Angola has an infant mortality rate of 157 per 1000 births compared to only 4 in the UK.
- In 2014, 35 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, the majority of them in low-income African countries.
- In wealthy, developed countries, the main causes of death are the 'diseases of affluence', mainly caused by excessive lifestyles, for example too much fatty food, obesity, alcohol and smoking.
- In contrast, people in the developing world are more likely to die of 'diseases of poverty', which are preventable and treatable diseases, caused by a lack of access to amenities that Western populations take for granted, such as nutritional diets, clean water, vaccination and maternal care.
- While the developing world is traditionally associated with diseases of poverty, there has been a significant rise in the diseases of affluence. This is known as the epidemiological transition, where a shift occurs from infectious diseases to non-infectious diseases.
Gender
- Many theories which study development have been accused of being 'malesteam', which means that they are bias towards, and reflect the masculine way of looking at the world.
- Leonard argues that the conditions of underdevelopment, dependency, powerlessness and inequality are experienced by women to a greater extent than men. It has been suggested that women in the developing world make up a 'fifth world' in that they experience more issues than men in these countries.
- Van der Gaag argues there are five threats to the progress of women:
- The increasing militarisation of the world: This is having a disproportionate negative effect on women and children, who make up 72% of all refugees fleeing war-zones. Women are often forced off their land and are the victims of ethnic cleansing and rape. The values of military societies are patriarchal values
- Disempowerment of women through economic globalisation: Globalisation has led to women being exploited by the global pornography industry on the internet. The UN estimates that 4 million women a year are trafficked from the developing world for prostitution use in the developed world.
- The rise of religious fundamentalism: This has resulted in heightened legal and social restrictions of women. There is an increase in the number of honour killings of women for infringing their family ‘honour’ or because they have been raped. In Bangladesh, women are killed or burned with acid for not wanting to marry a man.
- Environmental degradation This may be having a disproportionate negative effect on the lives of women in the developing world. Ecofeminists argue that women are naturally closer to the environment because they are more likely to work the land than men, and therefore the destruction of it is more likely to negatively effect their health.
- Male backlash against women’s rights: Van der Gaag claims that in some developing countries, men believe that women have too many rights. This is a form of ‘neo-patriarchy’ and is another attempt to exert male authority through a culture of violence.
- 70% of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are women.
- 90 million girls receive no education at all n the developing world.
- 6000 girls every day in Africa are subject to FGM
- Pearson noted that development agencies are now recognising the needs of women and the expansion of education and family planning does constitute progress.
- Van der Gaag noted, however, that the advances cannot hide the fact that for millions of women, life is still very grim and some brutal facts remain.
Demography
- 1/2 the population live on 1% of the land
- Between 1960-2012 the population grew by 4 billion
- By 2050 it is expected the world population will have grown to 9 billion
- The world's population grows by 83 million every year, and 99% of this occurs in LLEDCs.
- The developed world consumes 5/6's of the worlds resources
Malthus and Modernisation Theory:
- Malthus claimed that eventually the world population would grow larger than the food supply.
- Ehrlich supported this idea as he claimed the birth rate must be brought into balance with the death rate or man kind will breed itself into oblivion.
- This could be due to lack of contraception, lack of knowledge, patriarchal society.
- Some solutions to this is aid, developing countries adopting western values, such as gender equality, contraception and education.
- However, adopting western values also means countries may adopt western problems, and aid could come in the form of tied aid. Also, it could lead to cultural homogenisation as it is difficult to change traditional values
The Anti-Malthusian view and Dependency:
- Adamson argued that poverty creates over-population. This could be due to having children as economic assets, high infant mortality rate, e.g. in Africa only 1 out of 10 children in a family will live to 38.
- USA has 6% of the worlds population but consumes 40% of the worlds resources
- USA uses more electricity on Christmas lights than Ethiopia does on its entire electricity