Welfare Standards Around the World
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058241260783 |
| Author | Richard Rose |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
16 POLITICAL INSIGHT • JUNE 2024
The United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
arms good health, education, and
employment as inalienable rights.
Certainly, progress over many decades has
resulted in billions of people today enjoying
standards of welfare higher than their parents
and unthinkable to their grandparents. And
yet, billions still live in poverty. The average
Indian youth can expect to have at least
a secondary school education, but only
half of their mothers are literate and most
grandparents are illiterate.
Measuring welfare is not easy or
straightforward
Economists might try to use Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) per capita to compare welfare
across countries and continents but it is not a
direct measure of individual conditions such
as life expectancy, literacy and employment.
Welfare cannot be reduced to a single
indicator. Countries can make unbalanced
progress in welfare too. For example, the Soviet
Union gave priority to full employment while
life expectancy lagged. Moreover, subdividing
national data by gender shows that there can
be substantial inequalities between men and
women within a country, as well as inequalities
between national populations.
Welfare goes global
So, how has welfare developed around the
world? My new book,
Welfare Goes Global
,
tests the extent to which countries across
six continents have been making national
progress in multiple measures of welfare
since 1991. Analysis of a Global Welfare
database covering 127 countries with 95 per
cent of the world’s population shows the
extent to which the welfare of people in the
Global South is progressing. For countries
that have not caught up with global
standards, projecting rates of progress into
the future indicates whether it will take a
country a few years or until near the end of
the century to catch up with xed global
standards.
Globally, a government’s inputs vary
greatly with a country’s resources. In a large
majority of countries, the state’s resources
for public expenditure on welfare are much
less than those of post-industrial societies.
Countries that are standing members of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) usually set global
standards for welfare. This is because they
are highly developed, that is, they have a
high level of urbanisation and democratic
institutions and a low level of corruption.
They also have a high level of GDP per
capita because non-economic elements of
development promote economic growth.
Cultural inuences can also impact on
welfare. For example, female employment
is much lower in countries where religious
Welfare Standards
Around the World
Richard Rose examines the state of people’s welfare across the globe
and finds reasons to be cheerful – but also major challenges ahead.
Political Insight June 2024 BU.indd 16Political Insight June 2024 BU.indd 16 23/05/2024 15:2823/05/2024 15:28
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