Financial systems and development

also the one used within the global comparison. Table 31. Urbanization
However, a significantly different relationship The data on urban population as a percentage of total
(based on Central European prices) prevails in the population urban fortioming of totacomparison
within that group, and this is the rela- population are from the forthcoming U.N. publicationship
presented in the separate publication of tion, The Prospects of World Urbanization, supplethe
European comparison.
mented by data from the World Bank.
For further details on the ICP procedures, read- The growth rates of urban population are calcuers
may consult the ICP Phase IV report: World lated from the World Bank's population estimates;
Comparisons of Purchasing Power and Real Product for the estimates of urban population shares are calcu-
1980 (New York: United Nations, 1986). lated from the sources cited above. Data on urban
The income distribution data cover rural and urban agglomeration in large cities are from the U.N. Patareas
and refer to different years between 1970 and terns of Urban and Rural Population Growth, 1980.
1986. The data are drawn from a variety of sources, Because the estimates in this table are based on
including the Economic Commission for Latin different national definitions of what is urban,
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Economic cross-country comparisons should be interpreted
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific with caution. Data on urban agglomeration in
(ESCAP), International Labour Office (ILO), the large cities are from population censuses, which
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and De- are conducted at five- or even ten-year intervals.
velopment (OECD), the U.N. National Account Sta- The summary measures for urban population as a
tistics: Compendium of Income Distribution Statistics, percentage of total population are calculated from
1985, the World Bank, and national sources. country percentages weighted by each country's
In many countries the collection of income distri- share in the aggregate population; the other sumbution
data is not systematically organized or inte- mary measures in this table are weighted in the
grated with the official statistical system. The data same fashion, using urban population.
are derived from surveys designed for other purposes,
most often consumer expenditure surveys, Table 32. Women in development
that also collect some information on income.
These surveys use a variety of income concepts This table provides some basic indicators disaggreand
sample designs, and in many cases their geo- gated to show differences between the sexes to ilgraphic
coverage is too limited to provide reliable lustrate the condition of women in society. It renationwide
estimates of income distribution. flects their demographic status and their access to
Therefore, while the estimates shown are consid- some health and education services. Statistical
ered the best available, they do not avoid all these anomalies become even more apparent when soproblems
and should be interpreted with extreme cial indicators are analyzed by gender, because recaution.
porting systems are often weak in areas related
The scope of the indicator is similarly limited. specifically to women. Indicators drawn from cen-
Because households vary in size, a distribution in suses and surveys, such as those on population,
which households are ranked according to per cap- tend to be about as reliable for women as for men;
ita household income, rather than according to to- but indicators based largely on administrative
tal household income, is superior for many pur- records, such as maternal and infant mortality, are
poses. The distinction is important because less reliable. Currently more resources are being
households with low per capita incomes fre- devoted to developing better statistics on this
quently are large households, whose total income topic, but the reliability of data, even in the series
may be high, while conversely many households shown, still varies significantly.
with low household incomes may be small house- The first four columns show the ratios of females
holds with high per capita incomes. Information to males for the total population and for the underon
the distribution of per capita household income five age group. In general, throughout the world,
exists for only a few countries and is infrequently more males are born than females. Under good
updated; for this reason this table is unchanged nutritional and health conditions and in times of
from last year's version. The World Bank's Living peace, male children have a higher death rate than
Standards Measurement Study and the Social Di- females, and females tend to live longer. In the
mensions of Adjustment project, covering Sub- industrial market economies, these factors have re-
Saharan African countries, are assisting a few se- sulted in ratios of about 103 to 105 females per 100
lected countries to improve their collection and males in the general population. The figures in
analysis of data on income distribution.
these columns reveal that there are cases where
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