Rural development and inequality in Asian countries
Abstract
The study focuses on the effects of rural development on economic and social inequalities in the three Asian countries: Bangladesh, Philippines, and South Korea. Rural development in Asia began in the 1950s and was meant to improve the quality of life of the rural population. Three rural development approaches: community development (CD), green revolution (GR), and integrated rural development (IRD) with distinct objectives were successively launched in the three countries with the influence of international development agencies i.e. World Bank, USAID, United Nations' Offices, and others. Such agencies provided financial and technical assistance in the form of foreign aid for rural development. The effects of rural development on income, education, and health inequalities were examined by taking the rural development approaches as increasing levels of rural development using the development or the inverted u-curve theory and as increasing levels of foreign aid using the dependency theory. The inverted u-curve theory posits that inequalities increase during the first and second stages of development and declines when level of development reaches the advanced stage. On the other hand, the dependency theory posits that there is a linear relationship between level of development and inequalities. That is, inequalities increase with the increase in the level of development. The findings indicate that income inequality follows the inverted u-curve as level of rural development progresses from CD to GR and then to IRD in the three countries taking the rural and urban regions separately. The urban areas have somewhat completed the inverted u-curve while the rural areas particularly in Bangladesh and Philippines have lagged behind. The findings on education and health inequalities do not lend support to either of the two theories.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Potter, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Social structure
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