Human Development Report 2016

Poverty is no longer a
problem of developing
regions only; it is
also on the rise in
developed countries
114 million young people, still lack basic reading
and writing skills. 52 Lingering deprivations
are evident in various aspects of human development
(figure 1.2).
Poverty is no longer a problem of developing
regions only; it is also on the rise in
developed countries. The International Labour
Organization estimates that in 2012 more than
300 million people in developed countries
lived in poverty. 53
Children and women are the most affected
by poverty, and 36 percent of children in developed
countries live under the relative poverty
line, in households with an income below
60 percent of the national median household
income. In the United States 32 million adults
are functionally illiterate, and in the United
Kingdom 8 million. 54
Rising incomes around the world have been
accompanied by widening inequality. Measures
of the gaps in income equality include the
Gini coefficient (where a value of 0 means that
everyone has the same income, and a value of 1
means that one person has all the income) and
quintile ratios (the ratio of the average income
of the wealthiest 20 percent of the population
to the average income of the poorest 20 percent
of the population).
Although income inequality across households
has risen in many countries, some
estimates show that it has narrowed across
the world as a whole because the incomes of
developing and developed regions have been
converging. Relative global inequality has declined
steadily over the past few decades, from
a relative Gini coefficient of 0.74 in 1975 to
FIGURE 1.2
Human deprivation lingers in some indicators of well-being
Poverty and hunger
Income poor
Chronic hunger
766 million (2013)
795 million (2014–2016)
Children stunted
Children underweight
159 million (2014)
90 (million 2015)
Health, mortality and education
Children dying before age 5
Maternal mortality
People living with HIV
6 million (2015)
303,000 (2015)
36 million (2015)
Illiterate adults
758 million (2014)
Illiterate young people
Functionally illiterate people in OECD countries
Children not at school at primary level
Children not learning basic skills
114 million (2014)
160 million (2009)
61 million (2016)
250 million (2014)
Access to basic social services
People who lack access to an improved
water source
People who lack access to an improved
sanitation facility
People resorting to open defecation
People living in urban slums
663 million (2015)
2.4 billion (2015)
946 million (2015)
880 million (2015)
Source: Human Development Report Office.
30 | HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2016