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15

Health, Illness and Mortality

in Less Developed Countries:

Convergence, Divergence,

and Stagnation

Bali Ram and Shefali S. Ram 1

INTRODUCTION largest declines in their economic growth
during the 1990s, while much of Latin
In spite of increasing globalization and inter- America and the Caribbean have recovered
dependence between various parts of the after the economic slump of the 1980s. Global
world over the past three decades, there has progress on many other indicators of social and
been an increased divergence between more economic development has also been uneven.
developed and less developed regions in Although these regional economic condi-
terms of socioeconomic development; tions are not necessarily a product of demo-
although there has been a strong convergence graphic situations, they are clearly reflected
within the former group and strong diver- in demographic behaviours. The purpose of
gence within the latter group (Pritchett, this chapter is to examine how far social and
1997). A few developing countries such as economic changes have led to the conver-
China, India, South Korea, and Indonesia gence, divergence, and stagnation in health,
have made enormous economic gains, while illness, and mortality patterns in less devel-
many including Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina oped parts of the world, and why some coun-
have continued to stagnate despite large cap- tries and various subgroups have made
ital inflows of foreign direct investment. Sub- enormous gains while others have been left
Saharan Africa, which historically has lagged behind. (For the sake of analytical conven-
behind most regions, has continued to expe- ience, we include in the less developed
rience negative per capita economic growth regions all countries which are not classified
over the past two decades. Eastern Europe as ‘developed’ according to the World Bank.
and the Russian Federation experienced the We do not make a distinction between less