OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Unfair trade practices in the name of globalisation and unilateral opening up of economies by the developing countries have placed the common man in the Third World in a seriously disadvantageous position. It has also put the poor in the developed world in a spot.

The Human Development Report-2005 recently released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has a ready answer. The report, dwelling upon relative poverty in rich countries, says : "Two OECD members--Mexico and the United States--have the dubious distinction of having child poverty rates of more than 20%."

At the end of the 1990s the United Kingdom had one of the highest rates of child poverty in Europe. In this context, the report observes that though the UK has had some recent success in reversing a rapid rise in child poverty, "the labour market developments, including rising income at the top of the distribution, have pulled in the opposite direction."

The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that much of the rise in the UK’s child poverty rate is accounted for by the changing relative position of families in the income distribution, rise in the number of single-parent families and families where both parents are jobless.

In a comparison with a lesser developed country in Europe, the UNDP report observes : "The poorest 20% of the population in the United Kingdom have an income comparable to that of the poorest 20% in the Czech Republic, a far less wealthy country."

Most rich countries define poverty in relative terms. Child poverty is a particularly sensitive indicator of poverty in rich countries. It provides an insight into the scale of deprivation and is also an indicator of inherited disadvantage and the transmission of poverty across generations, the report observes.

A study done by the United Nations Children Fund also confirms the observations of the UNDP report. It noted a rise in child poverty in as many as 17 out of 24 OECD countries in the 1990s. Child poverty is defined as living in a family with an income below 50% of the national median. This shows that 40 50 million children are growing up in poverty in the world’s richest countries. The United States leads the world in healthcare spending. On a per capita basis, the US spends twice the average of OCEDC countries on healthcare. Yet key US health indicators are far below anticipation, considering its national wealth. The infant mortality rate is now higher for the US than for many other industrialised countries. Malaysia, a country with an average income a quarter of the US, has the same infant mortality rate as the States.

According to the UNDP, the reason behind this is: "Unequal access to healthcare has a powerful effect on health inequalities linked to race, which are only partly explained by insurance and income inequalities. One study finds that eliminating the gap in healthcare between African-Americans and white Americans would save 85,000 lives a year."

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