The refrigerator as a harbinger of a better life
To get a good sense of a country’s level of development, you need to look at the items people have in their homes, according to economists Rutger Schilpzand and Jeroen Smits from Radboud University. Research on low- and middle-income countries often focuses on income, health or education, but that doesn’t tell you the full story of a country’s situation. ‘That’s why, for the first time, we are mapping out how the material wealth of households is developing,’ Schilpzand explains. The researchers coin this material wealth growth for households the 'domestic transition'. Their research is published today in the Journal of International Development.
Today, people in wealthy countries can scarcely imagine life without a refrigerator, television or washing machine, but prior to 1960 very few households owned these appliances. From that point on, however, things moved quickly: just fifteen years or so later these items could be found in pretty much every kitchen and living room in these countries. This development from a society in which households own hardly any of these kinds of items to one in which almost every household has them is what the researchers refer to as ‘the domestic transition’. In their paper, they describe what this transition means for emerging countries and what factors contribute to a faster transition.
All these appliances that households in wealthy countries own today represent the basic conditions for what could be called a decent standard of living. ‘Virtually every household in the world that is wealthy enough to buy such items actually does so,’ says Smits. ‘And that’s not surprising, as behind all the colourful images we see of markets in developing countries or women washing clothes in a river lies a huge burden of time and energy, which mostly falls on the shoulders of (house)wives.’ ‘Buying a refrigerator or washing machine immediately reduces their workload and creates space for spending their time in more productive ways, agrees Schilpzand. ‘The domestic transition is therefore an important prerequisite for strengthening the position of women worldwide.’
