Why is Africa Poor?

[Southern]

@MMMark

Mon. 10/03/22 11:05 EDT
.post #18

Some rankings from the page you linked to, using your examples of wealth metrics:

Botswana/total countries:

• per capita income: 92/224

• infant mortality: 141/224

• life expectancy at birth: 61.85 years 178/224

• literacy rate: 81.2% (2003 est.)

World literacy rate: 82% (2005 est.)

other literacy rates, examples of low and high extremes:

Afghanistan: 28%; Burkina Faso: 21.8%; Chad: 25%; Niger: 28.5%; Benin: 34.7%; Senegal: 39.3%; Sierra Leone: 35.1%; Somalia: 37.8%;

Georgia, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway: 100%

As I have said, Botswana seems to be average in some facets and lacking in others. And I will conceed that I overstated the case in regards to Botswana. Its more or less in the top half of the lower half in some respects and lower middle of the lower half in others. Not the bottom in all aspects. For that I appologize. However, I have never said that the proper institutions would not eliminate descrepancies. I believe the adoption of capitalism will improve everyones lot. The question is will it eliminate all discrepancies.

@MMMark

note: over two-thirds of the world’s 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.)

This dosent mean much. Your list includes 8 of the most populous nation in the world. For example

China 1.3 billion people; literacy 91% 1,300,000,000 X 9%(illiterates) = 117,000,000

Nigeria 114 million people; literacy 68% 114,000,000 X 32% (illiterates) = 36,000,000

Not an honest portail of reality. Obviously if I omited the total populations and literacy rates, it would appear china is in worse shape than nigeria. That not the case. I feel this is an attempt to distract from the reality the literacy rates in sub-saharan africa are much lower than outside.

@MMMark

@Southern

But when you look at african populations outside of Africa they are relatively poor. This is in western nations where both European, African, and Asian populations are subject to the same economic and political systems.

@Southern

So I used an example where different populations of people when exposed to the same institutions have different outcomes.

Percentage (and numbers in thousands) below 100% of poverty, for the U.S.A., from the page you linked to:

• all races: 13.2% (39,829)
• White alone, not Hispanic: 8.6% (17,024)
• Asian alone: 11.8% (1,576)
• Hispanic (of any race) 23.2% (10,987)
• Black alone: 24.7% (9,379)

As another example of “extent,” are Blacks significantly poorer than Whites and Asians, or just marginally poorer?

As a third example of “extent,” are significantly more or just marginally more Blacks poorer than Whites and Asians?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marginal

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/significant

What exactly are you trying to pin me down on? Significant is a word that I have chosen to use. I am not the only one who finds the differences “significant”. If you look at the rest of the data it shows that the differences are persistant and nagging. It seems significant.