WK 11.2 Reading economy

The fundamental goal of economic development is not economic growth, but improvement in human welfare, what we often call human development, or social development. A country may grow for limited periods on the basis of mining its natural resources, or by large infusions of foreign aids, but to sustain the growth process there is no substitute for educated people. As an example, in 1960 countries like Korea and Japan had much higher enrollment rates than would have been expected given their 1960 levels of income. The same effects of education show up in other ways at different levels of analysis. More educated workers earn higher income, so that education is a good investment for parents to make in their children. Even more convincing is evidence that education raises the output of farmers, since, for example, a farmers output cannot be higher with education just because his education made it easier to get the job in the first place. Furthermore, and most importantly, education has a high social return as well, that is educated people, and especially educated women, bring benefits to society as a whole, not only to themselves, and do so even if they never enter the formal workforce and never earn money. It is also true that educated woman have fewer children, again controlling for all kinds of other factors such as family income, access to health, and access to family planning services. Women’s education even has environmental benefits. Investing in women’s education is one of the highest return investments in environmental protection, because it reduces fertility, discourages forest clearing by ensuring woman have better work options, and improves women’s ability to manage natural resources.

What I find interesting is that investing in social development is good economics. It leads to higher income and more economic growth, and to more education, health of this and the next generation. It is not just the soft-hearted who should be concerned with improving health, education, family, planning, sanitation and other programs. It is the hard-headed as well.  Investing in people and in social development is not enough. The nature of the economy also matters, in particular, the poor cannot benefit from more education and better health if they are not able to use their human assets to increase their own incomes.


Do you have your own reason why investing in social development is good economics?

Hanane Ben Abdeslam

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