Certainly, in terms of absolute dollar value, the poverty rate has come down.
As per World Bank data, around 767 million people lived with wages below $1.90/day in 2013 compared to around 1.85 billion in 1990.
At the same time, if we were to take inflation into account, for example food, oil, education expenses, rent, house ownership into account, the real wage for most might have gone below what it was in 1990. As majority of this section of population live on daily wages, along with relatively lesser level of education, there might be an illusion in a larger section of this population in terms of wage increases.
Moreover, this illusion could increase demand for natural resources, while climate change and population increase is impacting global food chain, and resource management requirements. We need to wait for some more time to understand whether the change we are seeing is a real and a sustainable one, while looking at the entire ecosystem in place. But, it might be too late by then.
When it comes to education, as we pointed out before, number of degree holders are at a record level around the globe, but there are also articles after articles sharing repeated concerns about mismatch between education offered, and labor force demands. Moreover, there are also concerns about quality of education offered. Further, the gap between population, employed, and not in labor force has been increasing around the globe over the years.
This is not pessimism, but stating the reality. The first step in finding solutions is to accept the reality rather than being wishy-washy pushing everything under the rug.
Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh
Even though things looks bad in the world, it has improved in some areas:
- Most people think global poverty is rising when in fact the opposite is happening
- Most people don’t know that child mortality is declining in poor countries
Why is this important?
1. Misperceptions about specific trends reinforces general discontent about how the world is changing
2. Misperceptions reveal a failure of our media and our education systems
3. We are not just negative about the past, we are also pessimistic about the future
https://ourworldindata.org/wrong-about-the-world
As per World Bank data, around 767 million people lived with wages below $1.90/day in 2013 compared to around 1.85 billion in 1990.
At the same time, if we were to take inflation into account, for example food, oil, education expenses, rent, house ownership into account, the real wage for most might have gone below what it was in 1990. As majority of this section of population live on daily wages, along with relatively lesser level of education, there might be an illusion in a larger section of this population in terms of wage increases.
Moreover, this illusion could increase demand for natural resources, while climate change and population increase is impacting global food chain, and resource management requirements. We need to wait for some more time to understand whether the change we are seeing is a real and a sustainable one, while looking at the entire ecosystem in place. But, it might be too late by then.
When it comes to education, as we pointed out before, number of degree holders are at a record level around the globe, but there are also articles after articles sharing repeated concerns about mismatch between education offered, and labor force demands. Moreover, there are also concerns about quality of education offered. Further, the gap between population, employed, and not in labor force has been increasing around the globe over the years.
This is not pessimism, but stating the reality. The first step in finding solutions is to accept the reality rather than being wishy-washy pushing everything under the rug.
Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh
Even though things looks bad in the world, it has improved in some areas:
- Most people think global poverty is rising when in fact the opposite is happening
- Most people don’t know that child mortality is declining in poor countries
Why is this important?
1. Misperceptions about specific trends reinforces general discontent about how the world is changing
2. Misperceptions reveal a failure of our media and our education systems
3. We are not just negative about the past, we are also pessimistic about the future
https://ourworldindata.org/wrong-about-the-world
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