Activity Eight
Examine the following table, which links under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and adult illiteracy (AIR). The adult illiteracy rate is the percentage of people over the age of 15 in a population who are illiterate.
| Region | Country | U5MR |
AIR (%) |
| Africa | Mozambique | 213 |
58 |
| Sierra Leone | 283 |
79* |
|
| Malawi | 229 |
42 |
|
| Uganda | 170 |
35 |
|
| Ghana | 96 |
31 |
|
| Egypt | 59 |
42 |
|
| America | Peru | 47 |
11 |
| Brazil | 40 |
16 |
|
| Jamaica | 24 |
14 |
|
| Cuba | 8 |
6* |
|
| Canada | 7 |
0 |
|
| Asia | Pakistan | 120 |
57 |
| Bangladesh | 96 |
60 |
|
| India | 83 |
45 |
|
| Indonesia | 52 |
15 |
|
| China | 36 |
17 |
|
| Sri Lanka | 18 |
9 |
|
| Japan | 5 |
0 |
|
| Europe | Poland | 11 |
0 |
| Greece | 8 |
4 |
|
| UK | 7 |
0 |
|
| Sweden | 5 |
0 |
Source: World Bank, 2000.
(a) Examine the countries that have zero adult illiteracy. Are the under-five mortality rates for these countries low or high compared with those for the rest of the table?
(b) Now examine the countries that have illiteracy rates that are more than 50%. Are the under-five mortality rates for these countries generally low or high compared with those for the rest of the table?
(c) From your answers to these questions, would you say there is a link between adult illiteracy and under-five mortality rate? If so, what is it?
After you have come up with your answers, compare them with mine on the next page.
Activity Eight: Suggested Answer
You were asked:
(a) Examine the countries that have zero adult illiteracy. Are the under-five mortality rates for these countries low or high compared with those for the rest of the table?
(b) Now examine the countries that have illiteracy rates that are more than
50%. Are the under-five mortality rates for these countries generally low or high compared with those for the rest of the table?
(c) From your answers to these questions, would you say there is a link between adult illiteracy and under-five mortality rate? If so, what is it?
Activity eight should have suggested to you that the countries with high illiteracy have high under-five mortality rates and vice versa. Illiteracy rate is often taken as a measure of education level in a country (high illiteracy being equivalent to a low education level). So we can therefore draw a link between low education level and high incidence of disease. This link between education and disease has, in fact, been made many times. For example, the World Bank has reported on 'the extremely powerful role of literacy in determining a population's level of mortality'. It suggests that this single factor carries more weight than any other.
Now, try section five, which will consider the links between disease and poverty.
About this sample
This course sample is adapted from Preparing For Development, part of the U213: International Development: Challenges for a world in transition and TU871: Development: Context and practice courses.
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