This is part 4 of an exploration into why some countries are poorer than others.
Discrimination
Sometimes there are social or cultural factors that hold back poor countries. Discrimination is one of these. If there are certain people groups that are discriminated against, the country’s overall productivity can suffer. This may be a tribe, a caste, a racial category or minority language group. I have already mentioned Cameroon, which has both French speaking and English speaking regions. All the infrastructure happens in the French speaking part. French speakers in Canada complain of the opposite. Welsh speakers in Britain, or Catalans in Spain, have historically faced similar problems. Racial discrimination may be an issue, excluding certain groups from economic activity, either deliberately or not. Racial minorities regularly have poorer exam results and economic prospects than the majority. More serious forms of exclusion would be apartheid South Africa, or the Asian communities driven out of Uganda under Idi Amin, which was disastrous for Uganda’s economy.
Another division may be the role of women. Jeffrey Sachs talks about this in The End of Poverty: ‘Cultural or religious norms may block the role of women… leaving half the population without economic or political rights and without education, thereby undermining half of the population in its contribution to overall development.’ If you don’t believe that women should work, you have effectively halved the earning potential of your country.
Population
Closely linked to this is the population issue. If women see staying at home and bringing up children as their chief role, they will have more children than those who work. There is nothing wrong with having lots of children, as long as you can provide for them. Jeffrey Sachs again: ‘With fewer children, a poor household can invest more in the health and education of each child, thereby equipping the next generation with the health, nutrition, and education that can lift living standards in future years.’
As Paul has talked about here before, world population has exploded. What is interesting is that the countries where this has happened are often those where women do not play a role in business or society. When women are educated and given a choice, some will stay at home and look after children, and others will pursue careers or start small businesses.
This is an important factor, as some countries have seen their population double or triple without their economies keeping pace. That leaves more mouths to feed, and just not enough to go around.
Culture
I’ve already mentioned the role of women, but culture can have hidden effects in business, trade and development. China may be a major power now, but it was the world’s most developed country in the middle ages, and stagnated, or even went backwards, for centuries. Part of this was cultural, a pride and sense of self-sufficiency that led to a closing of China’s borders. ‘China seems to have long been stationary’, Adam Smith wrote in 1776, in his Wealth of Nations. ‘A country which neglects or despises foreign commerce… cannot transact the same quantity of business which it might do with different laws and institutions.’ That’s changed, but nationalism, suspicion, or radical philosophy still has some countries closed down to outside involvement – communism in North Korea, or extremist Islam in Taliban Afghanistan, locking countries out of development.
This the far end of the spectrum, but culture works in subtler ways too. Some cultures believe in a greater good, in unity, in the rule of law. They are optimistic, hopeful, ambitious and ready to pull together. Others can be paranoid, fragmented, uncertain of their place in the modern world, angry, resistant to change. Rich countries can be overconfident and brash. Poor countries can see themselves as victims and become despondent. In his The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, economic historian David Landes says ‘If we learn anything from the history of economic development it is that culture makes all the difference.’
The limits of cultural interpretations
At the same time, cultural influences on development are notoriously hard to call from the outside. Hinduism was often cited as one of the reasons why India would never develop. Because everyone accepts their place in the world, it was assumed that Hindus would lack the ambition required to innovate and do business on an international stage. The recent growth in India’s economy proves that wrong quite spectacularly. Korean economist Ja-Hoon Chang quotes a 1911 travel book that describes Koreans as “sullen, lazy and religionless savages”, something that hardly holds true today. So did Korean culture change, or was the writer simply being superior?
We understand each other better than ever in our globalized world, but our language and traditions are still full of little prejudices that imply we are better than others, and that our neighbours are lazy and dirty and uncouth. I love the fact that not turning up for work is called ‘taking French leave’ in England, and ‘filez a l’Anglaise’ (or ‘doing an English’) in France. A Malagasy friend once joked that in Madagascar, every tribe believes that every other tribe eats cats. In short, culture no doubt plays a role in development, but we have to watch our own biases as we seek to understand why some countries succeed and others fail.
I think that in many parts of the world religious beliefs can lead to poverty. This would come under ‘culture’ I guess. Religious viewpoints that are essentially fatalistic would have an empoverishing effect. Certain Eastern religions would see poverty and human suffering as a consequence of wrong deeds committed in a previous existence. According to such an ideology, to act to alleviate poverty in those situations would result in even greater misery in a future life.
A striking example of the empoverishing effects of religions convictions can be seen amongst the Tandroy of Southern Madagascar. Traditionally a man will spend his days building as large a herd of cattle as he can, to be slaughtered and sent with him to the grave upon his death. His surviving relatives will spend years constructing a huge ornately decorated stone tomb to house his remains, while they themselves live in ramshackle wooden huts. The landscape of the Antandroy territory is dotted with these huge edifices. giving eloquent testimony to the tribe’s conviction that you are dead much longer than you are alive. Enormous quantities of aid and investment have been poured into this area of Madagascar, but nothing ever seems to change. The wealth poured in seems to just trickle away into the sand, or maybe, get buried in the tombs.
Yes, I think religious factors probably are important in development. It’s one of those areas that isn’t very PC to theorise about and so it might not get the attention it needs. It’s always a tragedy when a religion serves the rich and ignores the poor. The God I know has his priorities the other way up.
I quite agree with the fact that descrimination is a major bedrock to underdevelopment of many communities. The teaching of the Bible on “One body many parts” which we conceptualise today as Globalization make this very clear. I wish many developing countries can come to the understanding of this fact and cease from ethnic, religious and other forms of strife which constitutes a serious clog in the wheel of progress.
I think this is a very recourceful website. The information is prompt, and the site states facts. I do think that the discrimination of the poor has a major affect on how much the country will be productive. It is also true that the role of women overall is affecting the country greatly. Now, I know that some women may have jobs, but of course not many. It is a privilege that women should be able to have jobs.
i am kazibwe frank requesting for assistance on the factors that led to the development of china.
Hello Jeremy. I was poking about your site and came across this essay that holds particular interest for me.
I am not an academic but have lived in different countries and am still living now in the Middle East and what I can offer is empirical analysis on society and the economy.
I too have written a short and necessarily lacking essay on social development. My input on the issue would be termed not PC but it is in many regards the synthesis of opinions held by many specialists that operate in developing countries in various capacities including anthropology. Essentially, your term “discrimination” does play a very large role in social development. The discrimination I observe though, is borne out of the social values, social customs and social traditions of a people. It is ingrained in the gestures of daily life; it is the very fabric of the intellectual architecture of a people. But one of the greatest obstacles to social development that I have witnessed over the years, is the inability of members of developing societies to grasp that quintessential precondition to development that is the formulation of abstract concepts and the conceptualization of the dynamic necessary to achieve that concept.
You also mention population explosion upon which I touch too. In sixty years of aid and development, the greatest success has been achieved by the various vaccination campaigns and by all the medical assistance that brought about a decline in infant mortality. This of course is a noble result. But the consequences have been devastating as is attested particularly in Africa by recurrent famines. One of the reasons that health aid has more success than all other development aid is that vaccines, for example, do not require any input or maintenance by the receiver other than to avoid life threatening situations like falling off a cliff or some such. But then, as you pointed out, this increase in population has not been matched by an increase in agricultural or commercial productivity rendering these people ever more dependent on outside aid.
All this to say that yes, “discrimination” though under different guises is absolutely an obstacle to what is deemed to be “development”.
POPULATION CONTROL IS THE PART OF SELFISH.
Who are humans? what are their functions?
I think humans are just like other living beings.Among animals never we can’t see the un natural birth control process.Here nature control living circle(like…lion eats rabit).Man is not exception in this process!In olden times man had a better life expettency…But now it decreasing day by day! so , for what we accepting the way of family control? Human resources is the best resources.we should keep it.China took strict family control(one chiled policy),but now they encouraging child bearing & child rearing.
By,
vc shukoor,
Department of Sociology,
Bharathidasan University,
Trichy-24
shukoor_vc@yahoo.com
HI.MY COMENT IS TO APLICIATE YOUR SERVICE.
CONGTRATION FOR YOUR GENERALICITY ANDEXPLATIONS OVER DEFFERENT ISSUES
MAY I GET A CHANCE TO JOIN WITH YOU IN THIS SERVICES?
I’m a student in secondary school and when i type in things, that i want simply I come to a mind boggling number of stupid websites, that are nonsense. I love this page though. Its detailed, but short and an insightful(<<<is that a word) piece. Good Luck to mee on my Geo. paper!
Thanks for your support,
I would have liked you to solve my problem of this question.
”How does culture influence development in developing countries?’
that was so plis that website is very interesting ,it has been talking about the development which we have been focus on population that has been disaster in Africa mostly in developing nation and cause poverty without good standard of living
it help me a lot just before mx exam started
With due respect, am very full of joy to write and thank the writer of this short essay because this topic really helps me to pass my exam with A grade. thanks to all those who contributed in writing this topic.
Hi. Iam also doing an exam, can any one shine some light on this question?
what steps can you take to minimize barriers which might be created between your self and your client who is taking a qualification?
LMB
please can you help with this question. An informed development is dependant of culture. discuss this assertion.
That’s what the post above is about! I’m not sure I’ve got much more to add to it here in the comments.
cultural and social factors play a serious role in clogging the wheels of progress due to the following reasons
1.obsolete beliefs such as ,having many kids as security impact negatively on the economic development of a country as it increases dependency ratio which will call for a decrease in investments
2.racial segregation,may impact negatively to a country’s ec.esp when the segregated group is actively involved in economic activitie
3.gender insensitivity;scrapes off the role the segregated party plays in production .
I’m happy at the contributions. can somebody help mewith this question. community development is affect by community attitude towars it. discusss. i will appreciate because i’m between a rock and a hard place with the lecturer.
Hi guyz,can somebody pliz help me solve this,WHY DID THE MODERN ECONOMIC GROWTH EXPERIENCE OF THE MORE DEVELOPED NATIONS NOT SPREAD MORE RAPIDLY TO THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES(LDCs)
religious also affect economic growth via the opportunity cost of time forgonne at church’s or mosque.
For a couple of hours a week, I don’t think that’s a big drag on the economy, but perhaps.
i find this site very useful and its contributors highly intelligent and would be very grateful to have your views for a discussion on the role of culture in the development of a morden state. thanks guys …….
because it is illegal for LEDCs to put higher tariff on imported good so that to protect our industries as George bush did in 2002 to protect steel industries in us LET US PUT HIGHER TARIFF IN EXPORTING OF RAW MATERIAL SUCH AS MINERALS TO THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ERNEST JOSEPHAT
TUMAINI UNIVERSITY OF MAKUMIRA
Yes, unfair trade rules have a big role in slowing development. I haven’t included them in this article as it doesn’t come under cultural factors, but it’s certainly very important.
but sir how do think that most of DEVELOPED COUNTRIES almost provide AIDs in churches and other social area inside of other economic area that can make us to develop
I would like to add one thing;
another issue on development is Marginalization within the community leads to poor participation in development as marginalized groups like women, people with disabilities, albino and the like are less concerned in development although these groups can serve many things in bringing about remarkable development.
1. is development a call for social change
2. how can culture enhance or promote development
3. development is relative in nature
Ha bhai sary 6?
I quit appreciate ur affort on educating the public on culture norms of different sociaty but my contribution is that culture infulence society should be look into properly.
help, do our assignment
thank you for this info. It helps for my essay.
I HAVE A QUESTION WHAT LEADS TO DEVELOPMENT OR CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT
Im Queendoline a nigerian student. Cross river State to be precise. I appreciate your brief work but what are the factors determining educational development ?
What are d factors affecting community development
hello i am intrested with your site,but try to show us futher explanation to how religion may affect development.
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get valuable data concerning my study and knowledge.