Contemporary Society - Improvement of Life Conditions

Improvement of Life Conditions

The UN estimates that, at the beginning of the 20th century, about 60% of the world population lived in conditions of extreme poverty. In 1981, 40% of the world population lived extreme poverty. In 2001, the percentage had been halved to 20%. Several developing countries, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa, still suffer from social and economic backwardness, but life conditions have significantly improved in most regions of the world, in particular in Asia. The overall improvement in life conditions and the role of technologies now available have contributed to increase GDP per capita by one and a half times in less than half a century (1960–2005), with peaks of over eight times in Eastern Asia. Only in a few countries, concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, growth of per capita income has been very slow.

Read more about this topic:  Contemporary Society

Famous quotes containing the words improvement of, improvement, life and/or conditions:

    The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutions ... are as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The life of reason”Ma phrase once used by people who thought that reading books would deliver them from their passions.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    Technological change defines the horizon of our material world as it shapes the limiting conditions of what is possible and what is barely imaginable. It erodes ... assumptions about the nature of our reality, the “pattern” in which we dwell, and lays open new choices.
    Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)