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OECD 1999
Real Progress: Fifty Years of USAID in Costa Rica
world. New roads have linked previously isolated villages with the rest of the country
and favoured the wider marketing of agricultural products and manufactures.
National electrical and telephone grids have been established, which provide
access to virtually all significant population concentrations in the country. Clean
water systems and sanitary waste disposal systems have also been established
nation-wide.
The largest and most important infrastructure project has been the Inter-American
Highway, for which construction began in the 1940s. It has not only provided access to
Panama and Nicaragua, but has also linked the central valley to the rest of Costa Rica.
Social services
Table 11.1. Economic and social indicators, Costa Rica, 1950 and 1995
1950 1995
Distribution of labour force (%)
Agriculture 54.7 21.4
Manufacturing 11.3 18.1
Services 34.0 60.5
Distribution of production (%)
Agriculture 40.9 18.3
Manufacturing 13.4 21.9
Services 45.7 59.8
Social indicators
Infant mortality rate (per thousand) 110.0 13.0
Total fertility rate (births/woman) 6.7 3.0
Malaria death rate (per 100 000) 60.0 0.0
2nd and 3rd degree malnutrition (%) 13.7 3.6
Adult illiteracy 27.0 7.0
Life expectancy at birth (years) 51.0 76.0
Primary school enrolment rate (%) 100.0 102.0
Secondary enrolment rate (%) 20.0 42.0
Source: Authors.
The social infrastructure of the country has expanded rapidly, though has, perhaps,
lagged a decade behind the build-up in physical infrastructure. During the
late 1960s and 1970s, health insurance coverage under the social security system
expanded rapidly for modern sector workers. Government programmes in public
health combined water and sewerage infrastructure with dissemination of
improved health practices to produce dramatic declines in infant mortality and
improvements in other health indices (see Table 11.1).
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