Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Material World: A Global Family Portrait

Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel is available from Amazon.com.

It provides insights into the differences in economic growth around the world by photographing the material possessions of a typical family in various countries.

CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM.

A few of the families were highlighted on the PBS website:

Mali: The Natomo Family
It is not unusual in this West African country for men to have two wives, as 39-year-old Soumana Natomo does. More wives mean more progeny—and a greater chance you will be supported in old age. Soumana now has eight children, and his wives, Pama Kondo (28) and Fatouma Niangani Toure (26), will likely have more. How many of these children will survive, though, is uncertain: Mali's infant mortality rate ranks among the ten highest in the world. Some of the family's possessions are not included in this photo—another mortar and pestle for pounding grain, two wooden mattress platforms, 30 mango trees, and old radio batteries that the children use as toys. (Note: The Natomos appear on the adobe roof of their house in Kouakourou. An infant son is nestled in his mother's arms. One daughter is absent.)

Mali Stats
Population: 12 million
Population density: 9.1 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 7.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 23 years
Percentage urban/rural: 26% urban, 64% rural
Per capita energy use: 22 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 118.7 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 48 (male), 49 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 64% (male), 84% (female)
Internet users: 30,000

......................................................................

India: The Yadev Family
At age 25, Mashre Yadev is already mother to four children, the oldest of whom was born when she was 17. Each morning at their home in rural Uttar Pradesh, she draws water from a well so that her older children can wash before school. She cooks over a wood fire in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot kitchen, and such labor-intensive domestic work keeps her busy from dawn to dusk. Her husband Bachau, 32, works roughly 56 hours a week, when he can find work. In rough times, family members have gone more than two weeks with little food. Everything they own—including two beds, three bags of rice, a broken bicycle, and their most cherished belonging, a print of Hindu gods—appears in this photograph.

India Stats
Population: 1.0 billion
Population density: 318 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 3.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 36 years
Percentage urban/rural: 28% urban, 72% rural
Per capita energy use: 494 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 66 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 62 (male), 64 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 32% (male), 55% (female)
Internet users: 7 million

......................................................................

China: The Wu Family
The nine members of this extended family—father Wu Ba Jiu (59), mother Guo Yu Xian (57), their sons, daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren—live in a three-bedroom, 600-square-foot dwelling in rural Yunnan Province. While they have no telephone, they get news and images of a wider world through two radios and the family's most prized possession, a television. In the future, they hope to get one with a 30-inch screen as well as a VCR, a refrigerator, and drugs to combat diseases in the carp they raise in their ponds. Not included in the photo are their 100 mandarin trees, vegetable patch, and three pigs.

China Stats
Population: 1.3 billion
Population density: 627 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 1.7 children per woman
Population doubling time: 67 years
Percentage urban/rural: 37% urban, 63% rural
Per capita energy use: 905 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 32 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 69 (male), 73 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 7.9% (male), 22.1% (female)
Internet users: 46 million

......................................................................

Japan: The Ukita Family
Like many Japanese women, 43-year-old Sayo Ukita had children relatively late in life. Her youngest daughter is now in kindergarten, not yet burdened by the pressures of exams and Saturday "cram school" that face her nine-year-old sister. Sayo is supremely well-organized, which helps her manage the busy schedules of her children and maintain order in their 1,421-square-foot Tokyo home stuffed with clothes, appliances, and an abundance of toys for both her daughters and dog. She and her husband Kazuo, 45, have all the electronic and gas-powered conveniences of modern life, but their most cherished possessions are a ring and heirloom pottery. The family's wish for the future: a larger house with more storage space.

Japan Stats
Population: 128 million
Population density: 336 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 1.3 children per woman
Population doubling time: 289 years
Percentage urban/rural: 79% urban, 21% rural
Per capita energy use: 4,316 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 3 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 78 (male), 85 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 1% (male), 1% (female)
Internet users: 56 million

......................................................................

United States: The Skeen Family
Rick and Pattie Skeen's 1,600-square-foot house lies on a cul-de-sac in Pearland, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The fire hydrant in this photo is real, but not working—a souvenir from Rick's days as a firefighter. Rick, 36, now splices cables for a phone company. Pattie, 34, teaches school at a Christian academy. To get the picture, photographers hoisted the family up in a cherry picker. Yet the image still leaves out a refrigerator-freezer, camcorder, woodworking tools, computer, glass butterfly collection, trampoline, fishing equipment, and the rifles Rick uses for deer hunting, among other things. Though rich with possessions, nothing is as important to the Skeens as their Bible. For this devoutly Baptist family, like many families around the world, it is a spiritual—rather than material—life that matters most.

U.S. Stats
Population: 292 million
Population density: 29 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 2.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 116 years
Percentage urban/rural: 78% urban, 22% rural
Per capita energy use: 8,148 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 6.7 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 74 (male), 80 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 3% (male), 3% (female)
Internet users: 165 million

......................................................................

3 comments:

  1. Hello Everybody,
    My name is Mrs Sharon Sim. I live in Singapore and i am a happy woman today? and i told my self that any lender that rescue my family from our poor situation, i will refer any person that is looking for loan to him, he gave me happiness to me and my family, i was in need of a loan of $250,000.00 to start my life all over as i am a single mother with 3 kids I met this honest and GOD fearing man loan lender that help me with a loan of $250,000.00 SG. Dollar, he is a GOD fearing man, if you are in need of loan and you will pay back the loan please contact him tell him that is Mrs Sharon, that refer you to him. contact Dr Purva Pius,via email:(urgentloan22@gmail.com) Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We Are Living in Integral Global Country Welcome to the site of unity https://unidad4all.com/ This is not my native language but i do not care if write wrong words the only thing i care is that everyone will feel the unity and happiness My purpose is Unite people from all kinds that different outside but…

    ReplyDelete

  3. TESTIMONY ON HOW I GOT MY LOAN AMOUNT FROM A RELIABLE AND TRUSTED LOAN COMPANY LAST WEEK. Email for immediate response drbenjaminfinance@gmail.com

    Hello everyone, My name is Mrs. Carolin Glowski, I'm from Europe, am here to testify of how i got my loan from BENJAMIN LOAN FINANCE after i applied Two times from various loan lenders who claimed to be lenders right here this forum, i thought their lending where real and i applied but they never gave me loan until a friend of mine introduce me to {Dr. Benjamin Scarlet Owen} the C.E.O of BENJAMIN LOAN FINANCE who promised to help me with a loan of my desire and he really did as he promised without any form of delay, I never thought there are still reliable loan lenders until i met {Dr. Benjamin Scarlet Owen}, who really helped me with my loan and changed my life for the better. I don't know if you are in need of an urgent loan also, So feel free to contact Dr. Benjamin Scarlet Owen on his email address drbenjaminfinance@gmail.com


    THANKS

    ReplyDelete