Unequal Development and the Movement of Peoples Lopez, Valerie March 31, 2009 Period 1 Chapter 32 Unequal Development and the Movement of Peoples

The Problem of Growing Inequality Since 1945 global economic productivity has expanded more rapidly than at any other time in the past. (Spodek 530-531) Large numbers of legal and illegal immigrants from poor nations with growing populations are entering the developed industrial nations, with the exception of Japan. (Bulliet 867-868) The industrialized nations of the Northern Hemisphere now enjoy a larger share of the world’s wealth than they did a century ago. (Bulliet 867-868) The United States, Japan, and the nations of the European Union alone accounted for 74% of the world’s economy in 1998. (http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_otherprod/migration.pdf) Regions tied to new technologies that provided competitive advantaged became wealthier, while other regions lost ground. The tax reform program put in place during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1982-1989) lead to greater wealth inequality in the United States. (Bulliet 867-868) http://www.utexas.edu/features/2007/ancestry/graphics/ancestry5_medium.jpg

Internal Migration: The Growth of Cities Migration from rural areas to urban centers increased threefold between 1925 and 1950, and the pace accelerated after that. (Bulliet 869-870) Shantytowns around major cities in developing nations are commonly seen as signs of social breakdown and economic failure. (Spodek 380-382) A World Bank study estimated that three out of four migrants to cities made economic gains. (Andrea 533) Residents of cities in sub-Sahara Africa were six times more likely than rural residents to have safe water. (Spodek 380-382) In many West African cities, basic services were crumbling under the pressure of rapid population growth. (Andrea 533) In 1990 in Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, more than thirty thousand people lived in garbage dumps, where they scavenged for food and clothing. (Bulliet 869-870) http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/Continent%20Maps/Africa%20Political%20Large.gif

Global Migration Each year hundreds of thousands of men and women leave the developing world to emigrate to industrialized nations. After 1960 this movement increased in scale and ethnic and racial tensions in the host nations worsened. (Bulliet 870) Political refugees and immigrants faced murderous violence in Germany, growing anti-immigrant sentiment led to a new right-wing political movement in France; and an expanded border patrol attempted to more effectively seal the U.S. border with Mexico. In Germany in 1975 immigrants made up only 7% of the population but accounted for nearly 15% of all births. (Spodek 530-531) Although immigrant fertility rates decline with prolonged residence in industrialized societies, the family size of second-generation immigrants is still larger than that of the host population. The fertility of the Hispanic population in the United States is lower than the rates in Mexico and other Latin American nations. (http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_otherprod/migration.pdf) As the Muslim population in Europe and the Asian and Latin American populations in the United States expand in the twenty-first century, cultural conflicts will test definitions of citizenship and nationality. (Bulliet 870) http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_maps/world_pol98.jpg

Bibliography Andrea, Alfred. The Human Record. Fifth Edition. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. Bulliet, Richard. The Earth and Its Peoples. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. "Growing Global Migration." DNI. 2001. DNI. 29 Mar 2009 <http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_otherprod/migration.pdf>. Spodek, Howard. The World's History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.