Sunday, May 15, 2011

Development: Health, Education, and Poverty

Health, education, and poverty are all intricately linked to one another. For example, someone with poor health may have an impaired ability to be productive at work and may therefore not earn the wages needed to keep him or herself out of poverty. Additionally, a child with chronically poor health may not be able to attend school as frequently as his or her healthy counterparts, which in the long term could lead to lower education levels. While poor health is correlated with decreased income and lower education levels, can we make any assumptions about causality?
These three factors are so intimately interconnected that it is difficult to discern if these factors are merely correlated with one another or if an elevation in one factor may cause an elevation in another factor. Though this distinction between correlation and causation may seem petty and insignificant, I feel like it is important to pinpoint some sort of causality in order to make strides in global development.
Let’s look at Kerala, a state in India that has experienced unparalleled progress in healthcare and education. The high literacy rates and life expectancies of Kerala rival those found in high-income countries. The state also has some of the lowest infant and maternal mortality rates in the country. Interestingly, while Kerala may boast elevated health and education levels, the state has experienced relatively slow economic growth. In fact, the unemployment rate in Kerala is almost three times that of the overall unemployment rate in India.
In this scenario, elevated levels of healthcare and education did not cause economic growth. In fact, in reaching many of the millennium development goals, Kerala was left with limited money for other investments like highways and cheaper colleges. Therefore, the state of Kerala produced many healthy and educated, but unemployed, individuals.
I feel like it is important to understand the nuanced relationship between the three variables so that a region can experience growth not only in healthcare and education, but also in the economy. Maybe, we could look more closely at economic development as having a larger causal role in shaping health and education than vise versa. I have no idea if this is true, but I’m just throwing it out there. It would seem logical to me that increasing someone’s income level would empower that person to seek better health services and educational opportunities.

1 comment:

  1. interesting take on causality, yo. You bring up a really good point with Kerala as a case-study - do you actually increase the chance of an unstable state if you better health, education but not the economy? This year's revolt in Tunisia - started by educated but unemployed youth - is a startling reminder that increasing health AND income is critical for stability.

    ReplyDelete