Subtitles section Play video
-
According to the United Nations, it no longer judges a country by a particular stage that
-
it is at in its development.
-
Nonetheless, countries are ranked higher in terms of the comforts and opportunities afforded
-
to its citizens.
-
We now call this the Human Development Index.
-
Back in the day, we would judge a country by its stage of industrialization, and the
-
first developed country in this sense was the UK.
-
Belgium followed, then Germany, then the USA, and then France and other western European
-
nations.
-
If we look at today's Human Development Index, the top ten countries in order are:
-
Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland,
-
Canada, and 10th, believe it or not, is the USA.
-
The UK, which was once in first place, now stands in 16th place.
-
Today we'll look at why, in this episode of the Infographics Show, 3rd World vs 1st
-
World Countries - What's The Difference?
-
Don't forget to subscribe and click the bell button so that you can be part of our
-
Notification Squad.
-
First of all, many people think we should stop using these terms of first and third
-
world.
-
The terms are seen as insulting and vague, and while some nations might not be economic
-
powerhouses, what's to say the citizens don't live a happy and safe life, even without
-
a Big Mac and fries?
-
If we go back some years to 1952, a French demographer Alfred Sauvy wrote about “Three
-
worlds, one planet.”
-
It is he who is said to have coined the term.
-
By first world, he meant the USA, Japan, South Korea and Western Europe.
-
By second world, he meant the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and communist allies.
-
At the bottom, in the third world, he meant all the rest, societies that were mostly agrarian
-
and poor.
-
One of the reasons the term is decried is because it was so vague.
-
There wasn't really much analysis, and so in spite of northern Brits living in industrial
-
slums and working in inhumane conditions as George Orwell wrote in 'The Road to Wigan
-
Pier', because of Britain's relative wealth, it was deemed first world.
-
In fact, these days a professor at Harvard Medical School has used the term 'Fourth
-
World', which includes the USA.
-
This means a country of great wealth where some parts of society live on the fringes,
-
jobless, often drug-addicted, with no healthcare and not so many opportunities to change things
-
around.
-
They are living in a first world with third world standards.
-
So, this is a rather confusing question we have posed.
-
Do we use the term developing?
-
We can look at what has happened over many parts of Asia in the last twenty years.
-
While parts of China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand still have pervasive abject poverty,
-
there is a lot more money.
-
It isn't exactly getting to everyone, though, and one might ask if farming rice in China
-
was any worse than making iPhone components for hours on end in a factory in a polluted
-
city.
-
But with this new money, infrastructure has improved, and so too has healthcare and education.
-
We could say these countries are verily developing.
-
But why is Norway the most developed?
-
Is it still not developing?
-
Does developed mean stasis?
-
Not really, all countries are still developing, but others could be said to be going through
-
major changes.
-
The U.S. Department of State explains why Norway is so developed: “Per capita GDP
-
is among the highest in the world,” we are told, due to thriving industries in this nation
-
of just 5.2 million people.
-
Just take into account that Delhi has 18.6 million people.
-
You only need to walk around Delhi to see poverty all around you, you don't have to
-
go looking for it.
-
India is developing due to its fairly amazing economic growth, but still, it was reported
-
in 2014 that 58% of the Indian population were living on less than $3.10 per day.
-
India puts the poverty line at $1.90 a day.
-
This may be enough not to starve to death, but we can imagine that those people living
-
on that amount don't have the freedom and opportunities that Norway's less well-to-do
-
people have.
-
In fact, in Norway, the average income is more than $35,000 a year.
-
Only 3 percent of the population work very long hours, and all Norwegians, according
-
to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, can expect good, “environment
-
quality, jobs and earnings, income and wealth, education and skills, housing, work-life balance,
-
civic engagement, social connections, and health status.”
-
The same definitely cannot be said of any developing nation.
-
Nonetheless, anyone in India will tell you about great transformations, more job opportunities,
-
an easing of poverty, and how far the country has come in terms of developing technology.
-
Norway is top of the Human Development Index, so we could say this is the first of the first
-
world countries, even though we don't use that term anymore.
-
The top 51 nations fall in the 'High' Human Development bracket.
-
Out of 188 countries, India comes in at 131st.
-
Indeed, India's super rich wealth and massive growth has yet to trickle down to many of
-
the masses.
-
The HDI has three main categories: Environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and
-
social sustainability.
-
Right at the bottom of the HDI is the Central African Republic.
-
Again, while we don't use the term third world anymore, you could say that this might
-
be the bottom of the list in so far as we have a term for not being developed.
-
Why is that?
-
For starters, life expectancy there is only 52, or thereabouts.
-
It is tied with Angola, and only better than one country, which is Sierra Leone.
-
People there can expect to live to 50.1.
-
By comparison, Norwegians on average can expect to live about 30 years longer.
-
In India, the life expectancy is 68, somewhere in the middle.
-
The 4.6 million people living in the Central African Republic have faced extreme poverty,
-
war, ethnic and religious cleansing, and political violence.
-
It's said to be the worst place in the world to be young, and even if you get a job, the
-
average wage per year is said to be $400, although this might need updating.
-
Half of the population is illiterate, and if you go to school you might not do more
-
than 4 or 5 years.
-
It has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, and about a quarter of
-
the women have undergone genital mutilation.
-
If that isn't bad enough, human rights hardly exist.
-
Complain, and you might find yourself being arrested summarily and sent to a terrible
-
jail.
-
Corruption is rife, and there is not much anyone can do.
-
The country has a history of labor rights violations as well as child labor.
-
Children and women regularly face violence after being accused of being witches.
-
One travel blogger talked of his experience in the capital of Bangui, saying it was “a
-
mess that is always teetering on the edge of violence.”
-
We are of course mentioning the very worse things, and no doubt a lot of people live
-
a happy life there.
-
We just want to outline a kind of first, second and third comparison.
-
That's why we have picked these three nations.
-
We could also look at the country of Botswana, which comes in 108th place.
-
This is quite low, but if you've read Malcom Gladwell's book, 'Outliers', you'll
-
know it's home to possibly some of the happiest, laidback, self-sufficient people in the world.
-
Or was, until recent times.
-
According to Gladwell, they have a two hour work day on average, and play around most
-
of the time.
-
They don't need iPhones or dinner sets made by Hermes.
-
They are the last Hunter/Gatherer tribe called the ǃKung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
-
These wanderers also moved through Angola (which is placed 150th on the HDI).
-
Unfortunately, what they hunt and gather is being destroyed by development.
-
Anthropologists say they get over conflicts in peaceful ways and generally are a happy
-
lot.
-
They provide for their kids with devotion, and remain mostly monogamous.
-
Wealth is shared with everyone.
-
In more recent years, that has changed as some were forced to settle in one place, and
-
that's when the problems arose.
-
As soon as they got doors, they started shutting them and sharing less.
-
They are also very much third world by western standards.
-
So, are they any worse off than an overworked, overweight, diabetes and hypertension suffering
-
rich first world man that takes pills to sleep and often drinks to oblivion?
-
Let us know in the comments!
-
Also, be sure to check out our other video called What Can You Buy with a Million Dollars?!
-
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe.
-
See you next time!