By the Numbers

The UN came out with its latest “Human Development Report” on October 5th, which contains country factsheets with statistics and rankings based on factors that affect a country’s human development index (HDI). The HDI is the UN’s “broader definition of well-being” that takes more than just a country’s GDP into account by factoring in life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrollment rates, and purchasing power parity among other things.

Below are a few tables showing how Guatemala compares to the United States on a number of factors and where it falls in ranking overall. The “Countries” column shows how many countries were involved in the rankings for that particular index. The first number for each country shows that country’s ranking while the number in parentheses represents the value or percentage. The data used in the report are from 2007.

Some things to note:

Guatemala ranks 111th in GDP at purchasing power parity per capita, BUT it has the 13th highest Gini Index in the world. (The Gini Index is a measure of income inequality—the higher the number the more unequally distributed income is within a country.) This means there is a wealthy minority within Guatemala pulling up the per capita GDP while the majority of people are earning far less than $4,562 a year. For example, even if a Tactiqueño were able to find work everyday in the fields (a very common occupation for rural indigenous men), at the going labor rate he would only earn a little more than $1,300 during a year’s time. That’s $1,300 for 365 8-hour days of backbreaking labor. But most men aren’t lucky enough to find work everyday, so their yearly incomes are much less than that.

Guatemala has the 4th highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world. In the world! Nearly 50% of all Guatemalan children under the age of 5 are malnourished and that number jumps to 70% in predominately indigenous areas. There have been crop failures this year due to the worst drought Guatemala has seen in 30 years, but the real root of the problem is not the lack of food (although countries have sent food aid because of the supposed “shortage”) but the lack of income to buy food and the lack of education about the proper nutritional needs of children to buy the right food. Tortillas alone do not satisfy the dietary needs of a child.

As an Economist article stated, malnutrition in Guatemala should be a “national shame.” And from looking at the numbers there is much improvement to be made in other areas too.