New York Times: Nicholas Kristoff - A Way of Life Is Ending. Thank Goodness.
... For thousands of generations, a vast majority of humans have lived brief, illiterate lives marked by disease, disability and the loss of children. As recently as 1980, a slight majority of people in the developing world lived in extreme poverty, defined as surviving on less than $1.25 in today’s money.
Yet in a time of depressing news worldwide, about dysfunction and crisis from Syria to our own Congress, here’s one area of spectacular progress.
The share of people in the developing world who live in extreme poverty has been reduced from 1 in 2 in 1980 to 1 in 5 today, according to the World Bank. Now the aim is to reduce that to almost zero by 2030.
There will still be poverty, of course, just as there is far too much poverty lingering in America. But the extreme hanging-by-your-fingernails subsistence in a thatch-roof hut, your children uneducated and dying — that will go from typical to essentially nonexistent just in the course of my adult life. ...
... In 1990, more than 12 million children died before the age of 5. Now that figure is down close to 6 million. ...
... Illiteracy is retreating and technology is spreading. More people worldwide now have cellphones than toilets. ...
... When additional kids survive in poor countries, does that really matter? Isn’t the result just a population explosion leading to famine or war, and more deaths?
That’s a frequent objection, but it’s wrong. When child mortality drops and families know that their children will survive, they are more likely to have fewer babies — and to invest more in them. There’s a well-known path from declining child deaths to declining births, which is why Bangladesh is now down to an average of 2.2 births per woman.
Ancient diseases are on the way out. ...
... AIDS is also receding. ...
... Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the United States aid agency, says he is optimistic that extreme poverty will be eliminated by 2030 but notes that increasingly the focus will have to be on lagging countries like Congo. ...
... So let’s acknowledge that there’s plenty of work remaining — and that cycles of poverty in America must be a top priority at home — yet also celebrate a triumph for humanity. The world of extreme poverty and disease that characterized life for most people throughout history may now finally be on its way out.
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