since the mid-1970s: between 1975 and 1999 the average growth in per capita
income averaged 1 per cent (UNDP, 2001, p. 13).
Moreover, the gap between developed countries and other regions of
the Third World continues to widen. The average per capita incomes of
the lower- and middle-income countries are still diverging from the average
income of the richest countries: from 2.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent in the case
of the lower income economies, and from 13.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent for
middle income economies. The income difference between the fifth of the
world’s people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was
74 to 1 in 1997, up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. By the end of
the 1990’s the fifth in the highest-income countries owned 86 per cent of the
world’s GDP compared to the bottom fifth’s 1 per cent (UNDP, 2001, p. 3).
Industrialization
Low per capita incomes have been related historically to the Third World’s
economic dependence on agriculture. Incomes tend to rise as countries
industrialize and the size of the manufacturing sector increases. These are
important goals for developing countries.
All regions of the Third World showed a decline in the contribution of agri-
culture to GDP between 1990 and 1999 – see Table 1.2 (overall from 16 to
12 per cent), though where there is subsistence farming much agricultural
production is not exchanged, making it difficult to assess changes in
The Idea of a ‘Third World’ 3Table 1.1 Growth of real per capita GDP, 1966–Economy 1997 GDP per Annual average % growth
capita (US$)
1966–73 1974–90 1991–97 1998–2007a
High income 24,710 3.8 2.0 1.4 2.
Low & middle 1,370 3.9 1.2 1.6 3.
income
Asia 730 2.9 4.3 6.9 4.
Latin America & 4,230 3.9 0.3 1.5 2.
Caribbean
Middle East 1,865 5.8 2.0 0.6 0.
and North Africa
Sub-Saharan 560 2.0 0.9 0.2 1.
Africa
SOURCE: World Bank (1999), table A2-4, p. 197.
NOTE: aEstimate.