What are middle income countries? How much income counts as middle income? What makes them different from low income and high income countries? Learn about countries in poverty and not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The gap instinct is the tendency to divide the world into binary groups<\/strong>, with vast chasms between the two. Think of the simple categories we hear all the time when we discuss global economic development or worldwide standards of living. Rich vs. poor. The developed world and the undeveloped world. The West and \u201cthe rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are deeply conditioned to see the world this way. Yet the data shows that these gaps don\u2019t really exist. There is instead a vast middle <\/em>income countries level<\/strong> separating extremes of wealth and poverty. As we\u2019ll see, extreme poverty is rapidly declining in all corners of the globe. In fact, 5 billion of the world\u2019s roughly 7 billion people now live in middle-income countries. <\/strong> What do we mean by \u201cmiddle-income countries?\u201d Well, first we should revise our whole framework of \u201cdeveloping countries,\u201d and \u201cdeveloped countries.\u201d It\u2019s more useful and accurate to think of countries as being along a <\/strong>range <\/em><\/strong>of income levels<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As this range shows (and as we mentioned above), the majority of the world\u2019s population lives at Levels<\/strong> 2 and 3 <\/strong>middle income countries. If you go a step further and combine the middle-income and high-income countries, we see that only 9 percent of people live in extreme poverty. This is lower than at any time in human history. Despite this, people in Level 4 countries are deeply ignorant of how the rest of the world lives<\/strong> in middle-income countries. They believe that the gap between their standard of living and that of the rest of the world is far greater <\/em>than it actually is. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This pattern of ignorance among people at Level 4 is profound. Whether you\u2019re looking at life expectancy, child mortality, or vaccination rates, citizens of wealthier countries consistently believe in this vast chasm between themselves and the rest of the world. Why do we believe that we\u2019re all so different from one another? That people are either living in rich or poor countries, and not middle income countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer lies in our tendency toward a dramatic, binary worldview<\/strong>. Look, we live in a complicated world, far more complex and diverse than the ones our ancestors lived in. We\u2019re bombarded with new information all the time and the rate of social and economic change can be disorienting. In light of this, you can see why the Gap Instinct exerts such a powerful hold: it makes processing all of this information far easier by reducing the sometimes-frightening complexity of the world to simple dichotomies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Journalists and activists also portray the world this way: Political debates and news headlines revolve around themes like the 1% versus the 99%. Giant global corporations vs. small mom-and-pops. This is a theme we\u2019ll revisit throughout, but it\u2019s true: dramatic, divisive, conflict-driven stories make for more compelling newspaper articles and television clips<\/strong>. The Gap Instinct has a harmful impact on the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the main, it inhibits the very sort of international and cross-cultural cooperation we need in order to address global problems. When we see the world so divided into groups, with no overlap and no possibility of bridging the gap, it becomes very hard to work together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It also gets in the way of basic human empathy. Psychologically, we are naturally empathetic toward those we see as being similar to us. The Gap Instinct short-circuits this empathy by making us believe that we have less in common than we actually do. To avoid succumbing to the Gap Instinct, read reported statistics more closely and look for the (often hidden) majority behind the headline numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Comparing two averages is an overly simplistic way to analyze data<\/strong>. By only focusing on the means, you\u2019re ignoring the overlapping spreads and the overlapping range of numbers that are shared by the two datasets. For example, the average income per day in the US ($67) vs. middle income country Mexico ($11) overlooks the broad income overlap between individuals in these countries: all <\/em>Americans are not richer than all <\/em>Mexicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember also that averages are easily distorted by a few outliers ( Bill Gates and someone with $0 have an average <\/em>net worth of $50 billion). At best, they\u2019re a crude measurement when applied to broad statistical categories like the ones we\u2019re talking about. There will always be extremes of wealth and poverty. Inordinate focus on them obscures the fact that most people live in the middle<\/strong> in middle income countries. For example, the richest 10 percent of Brazilians have 41 percent of the country\u2019s wealth. That sure seems <\/em>like an extreme concentration of wealth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are middle income countries? How much income counts as middle income? What makes them different from low income and high income countries? Learn about countries in poverty and not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-factfulness","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Four Levels<\/strong> of Country Income<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nDelusions of Distance<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nCauses of the Gap Instinct<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nProblems Arising From the Gap Instinct<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOvercoming the Gap Instinct<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Be Careful With Comparing Averages<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nLook Past the Extremes<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n