New Delhi: Apart from income, health, or education, a country’s level of development can also be gauged by looking at household items like refrigerators, televisions, or washing machines, according to a team of economists.
Economists Rutger Schilpzand and Jeroen Smits from Radboud University in the Netherlands have coined the term for material wealth growth for households, called the ‘domestic transition’.
Their paper published in the Journal of International Development describes what this transition means for emerging countries and what factors contribute to a faster transition.
Research on low—and middle-income countries often focuses on income, health, or education, but that doesn’t tell the full story of a country’s situation.
“That’s why, for the first time, we are mapping out how the material wealth of households is developing,’ Schilpzand said.
All these appliances that households in wealthy countries own today represent the basic conditions for a decent standard of living.
Wealthy countries completed the domestic transition decades ago, but it is still in progress in many developing countries or may have just begun.
The researchers wanted to know whether the transition in emerging countries follows a similar pattern to that in Western countries a few decades earlier. To answer this question, they examined, among other things, TV and refrigerator ownership in 1,342 different regions within 88 low—and middle-income countries.
The transition did indeed follow a pattern that barely differs from that seen in Western countries. However, both between and within countries substantial differences in the phase and speed of the transition were observed.
“Whereas China and Mexico have already pretty much completed the transition, in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, it has barely begun. There, basic needs, such as food, clothes and shelter, have to be met first before people can even think about buying a refrigerator,” said Smits.
The data also revealed that the transition starts earlier and progresses faster in cities. Also, regions with more economic development and higher levels of education experience a faster transition.
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–IANS
