The OECD has many wealthy countries among its ranks, but the recent
global recession has been difficult on the residents of those countries.
Individuals with young children were particularly vulnerable, with more
than one in five such individuals struggling to buy food.
An interesting finding is that the U.S., despite being a geopolitical
superpower and the largest world economy, performs worse than many
other OECD countries in terms of its residents being able to afford
food.
Families Struggling to Afford Food in OECD Countries
This was very surprising for me. I would have expected numbers closer to 10% for both families with and without children. OECD has many many wealthy countries in their ranks--I would be very curious to see more info about this data: range, median, outliers, standard deviation, etc...
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting because as it was pointed out, many of the countries included in the list are wealthy countries. Therefore, I wonder what factors could be contributing to the numbers we see in the graph. The article mentioned that these countries have been experiencing a backlash because of the global recession, but what else?
ReplyDeleteUnited States being in the list does not surprise me, especially after learning about the ramifications of the financial crisis. the report leaves much to be desired in terms of qualitative responses from the survey as to why the OECD countries are struggling with providing basic necessities.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rasheed, this is indeed very surprising and I would like to see their data and methodology. I don't like the question they have used in the research as well. For instance, if people could not buy certain things like coke, which they could afford easily in the past, then they might answer yes to the question. Coke cannot be considered as a beverage which one absolutely need. Lot of people might have answered yes to the question who had cut spending on those stuff when the economy is not strong, so I don't think this is an accurate picture.
ReplyDeleteRasheed, why would you expect numbers for both categories to be about 10%? I think it makes sense that families with kids report having more trouble to get food than families without kids.
ReplyDeleteIt also says that the study looked at 1,000 individuals in each country. I wonder how they picked these 1,000 people. I do not think this is a large enough sample to be considered representative of an entire country.
I would like to ask Rasheed the same question that Sanjay posted above.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to put these numbers next to the countries' income inequality index (GINI) to see if there is any correlation.
I agree with Erika. Many of the countries listed are among what one would consider to be rich countries.This raises the question of how realistic this information is at portraying a trend throughout the world instead of among the few. Or could this perhaps be a sign that a lot of the wealth around the world is concentrated among a few?
ReplyDeleteSanjay I agree with you that 1000 individuals is not enough to represent a country with hundreds of millions of people. I also think Ly brings an interesting variable in to the equation if you add the GINI coefficient. Interesting study but 1000 is still too small for any country.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very interesting study. The sample used for this study was very low. Like many comments above, I would like to see some more quantitative measures such as the median, mean, etc.
ReplyDeleteI, unlike Sameen, was surprised to see the United States so high on this list. The U.S. was far from the only country hit by the financial crisis, and I do find it disturbing that it is underperforming some of the other countries on the list.
ReplyDeleteIt's terrible when families are having trouble feeding their children, especially with all of the food available and the technology we have. Hopefully federal programs like EBT or food stamps will be able to help these struggling families feed their children.
ReplyDelete