Disparities+and+change

Life expectancy is defined as the average number of years a person is expected to live. Between 1990 and 1995 women in LEDCs added more than 30years to their life expectancy Life expectancy increase in developed countries is not uniform. For e.g indigenous Americans have a lower life expectancy even though they live in the USA. They have a population pyramid similar to that of Morocco.
 * Trends in Life Expectancy **

Global Life Expectancy The oldest old (80+) are the fastest growing in the world today. In Switzerland they constitute about 4% of the population. In many countries of the world more babies are surviving infant mortality. Female life expectancy continued to rise since 1950s but male life expectancy has also shown some tremendous improvement. In MEDCs women outlive men by about 5-9years.

Despite these gains made by some countries, life expectancy is however, falling in most LEDCs especially countries suffering from HIV/AIDs infection. Some of these countries include South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe __Reasons why Life Expectancy is decreasing in some countries__ __Reasons why Life expectancy is increasing in some countries__
 * 1) Effects of HIV/AIDS in countries like Botswana, reducing life expectancy to 38 years
 * 2) Poor sanitation
 * 3) Poor nutrition
 * 4) Lack of access to healthcare
 * 5) Poor transport infrastructure
 * 6) High illiteracy levels
 * 1) Improvement in transport infrastructure, making it easy to transport nurses and doctors, and also to transport food.
 * 2) Improvement in sanitation.
 * 3) Improvement in nutrition.
 * 4) Decreased levels of illiteracy.
 * 5) Improved access to healthcare.

According to UNICEF, about 1billion people (1/6 of the world’s population) are illiterate, and millions of children are denied access to basic education. For example, by investing in women’s education, this would reduce infant mortality, improve sanitation, improve contraceptive use and reduce population and possibly reduce birth rate through delayed marriages and the need to have fewer children. Again, education is said to promote peace and national unity. It is generally believed that education will lead to social stability because, illiteracy makes it difficult for people to tolerate one another. But when they are educated, they tend to be a bit more accommodating and tolerant to other people’s cultures and views
 * Trends in Education and Income **

UNICEF extending primary education to children world wide would cost 4.2 billion Pounds per year, less than Europe spends on ice-cream or the US on cosmetics.

A graphical representation of the distribution of income or wealth. It was developed by Max O. Lorenz in 1970. The curve is a graph showing the proportion of overall income/wealth assumed by the bottom x percent of the population. A perfect equal income distribution would be one in which every person has the same income, as shown in the diagram below:
 * // Lorenz Curve and //**

http://www.shmoop.com/economic-principles/growth-productivity-equity.html

How evenly spread is the world’s wealth? What is a Gini Coefficient? The Gini coefficient, invented by the Italian statistician Corado Gini, is a number between zero and one that measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of something. The coefficient would register zero (0.0 = minimum inequality) for a society in which each member received exactly the same amount. A coefficient of one (1.0 = maximum inequality) would mean one member got everything and the rest got nothing.
 * // Gini Coefficient //**

In practice, coefficient values range from around 0.2 for historically equalitarian countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, the Slovak and Czech republics and Poland to over 0.6 for Central and South American countries (such as Brazil) where powerful elites dominate the economy. The evolution of the Gini coefficient is particularly useful as it reveals trends. It shows the evolution towards greater equality in Cuba from 1953 to 1986 (0.55 to 0.22) and the growth of inequality in the USA in the last three decades during which the Gini went from 0.35 in the '70's to 0.40 now (and it is still rising!). Global trends for the Gini coefficient of wealth can be rather confusing and distorted by the rapid growth of large Tiger Economies like China. “The gap between the worlds’s rich and poor has never been wider. Malnutrition, AIDS, conflict and illiteracy are a daily reality for millions.” [|MakePovertyHistory.ORG] media type="youtube" key="uWSxzjyMNpU" width="392" height="219"
 * What are typical Gini Coefficients for countries around the world? **

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals.
 * The Millennium Dev’t Goals **


 * Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty **


 * Target 1. ** Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day


 * Target 2. ** Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger


 * Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education **
 * Target 3. ** Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling


 * Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women **


 * Target 4. ** Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015


 * Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality **


 * Target 5. ** Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate


 * Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health **
 * Target 6. ** Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
 * Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases **
 * Target 7. ** Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
 * Target 8. ** Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases


 * Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability **
 * Target 9. ** Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources
 * Target 10. ** Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation


 * Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development **
 * Target 12. ** Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction? Both nationally and internationally)
 * Target 13. ** Address the special needs of the Least Developed Countries (includes tariff- and quota-free access for Least Developed Countries? exports, enhanced program of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries [HIPCs] and cancellation of official bilateral debt, and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction)

To what extent have these goals being achieved?