Poverty, Income and Gender Inequality
Maldives has successfully achieved their Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people living under the poverty line to a mere 1% as of 2011. Starvation is non-existent, HIV rates have fallen and malaria has been eradicated. Despite these accomplishments and progressive economic growth, developmental issues remain. In particular, the country needs to address income and gender disparities. Development in Maldives has occurred predominantly in the capital Male’; islands outside the capital continue to encounter high poverty vulnerability, lower per-capita income, lower employment and limited access to social services. A country-wide household income survey in 1997-1998 showed that the average income in the capital Male’ was 75% higher than in surrounding islands. Maldives’s Gini co-efficient stands at 0.41 and 0.3 million Maldivians continue to live on less than $1 a day.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of The Maldives
Famous quotes containing the words income, gender and/or inequality:
“I know everybody’s income and what everybody earns,
And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)