Details: Maps and Graphs

Could You Exist on 1/100th?

Each of the six colored bars in the graph below represents all 6.46 billion of the world’s people (in 2005). 

For example, the far right bar shows that 1.31 billion people in the world live on more than $10 a day. The other 5.15 billion people – the lower, dark red part of the bar – have $10 per day or less.
 
 
Percent of people in the world at different poverty levels, 2005
 
 
   
The $1.25 bar (second from the left) shows that 1.4 billion people struggle to survive on only $1.25 or less per day, an appallingly low amount.
 
Compare this with the amount an average American has each day to live – $125! So, almost one and a half billion of the world’s poorest exist – each day – on only 1% of what an average American enjoys!

 

 

Poverty and Poor Health

Here is a map that’s typical of the world maps we’ve seen before. The size of each country shows that country’s actual land area.

 

Land area map of world by country

 

The funny looking map below shows things in a different way. The size of each country shows its portion of the world’s absolute poorest people: nearly a billion of the poorest now struggle to exist on less than $1 a day, and over 90% of them exist in Asia and Africa.
 

Proportion of World Population Existing on Less than $1 a Day

population living on less than 1 dollar a day

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).  
Source: Worldmapper.org.

 

The next map is similar to the one above. Called the Human Development Index, it shows non-financial measures of people’s existence: things like life expectancy, underweight children, adult literacy, and water quality.

 

Proportion of World Population Low on the Human Development Index

human development index map of world

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).
Source: Worldmapper.org
 

Since the world’s poorest have very little health care, the vast majority of often preventable deaths occurs among these people. Deaths from nutritional deficiency, maternal and infant mortality, and infectious diseases are shown on this map. These often preventable deaths are almost a third of all deaths worldwide.

 

Often Preventable Deaths

often preventable deaths world map

Source: Worldmapper.org.- 2002 World Health Organization data

 

 

 

Larger Families - Greater Poverty

The chart below shows the total fertility rate (basically, the average number of children per family) and Gross Domestic Product (a measurement of the goods and services made within a country) each year. It is important to notice that, of the several dozen countries with an average of more than three children, all but five of them have an average income of less than $10,000 per year and most are below $5,000 per year!  That’s poor!

 

Total Fertility Rate and Gross Domestic Product Per Person

fertility rates and per capita gdp

 

Of the countries having two or fewer children, far above half of them have incomes over $10,000 a year. Some people believe that poverty leads to high birth rates while others believe that high birth rates lead to poverty. The best available research points to complicated feedback loops with each impacting the other.

According to UNICEF, more than 25,000 children under the age of five die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death”.

As we’ll see in later sections, average consumption in wealthier countries is depleting more of the Earth’s resources than in low-income countries. Therefore, it is crucial that higher-income people reduce both their consumption and birth rates to stop the resource depletion and overshoot – to balance their population with their available resources.

The world’s poorest need opportunities to rise above poverty and have a comfortable quality of life. Therefore, it is crucial that they reduce their birth rates – to balance their population with their available resources.

The primary purpose of population balance is to reduce misery and suffering in the world.