Abstract
The news from those who produce the World Development Report (WDR) is not good. First the relative and absolute gaps between rich and poor countries are growing, and secondly, those who experience the utter physical deprivation of ‘absolute poverty’ are on the increase. Apart from asking why such deprivation should be so inevitable, one needs to know the terms on which this deprivation is being measured. What, in other words, does it mean to say that the gap between rich and poor is widening?
Both the relative and absolute gaps between the richest and the poorest countries will widen in the years ahead, including the gap between middle and low-income developing countries.… The number of people living in absolute poverty, now some 750 million, will increase by about 100 million.
Source: World Development Report, 1981
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© 1984 Andrew Webster
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Webster, A. (1984). Measures of Inequality and Development. In: Introduction to the Sociology of Development. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17667-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17667-0_2
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