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Material World
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World in the Balance homepage
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In the early 1990s, after hearing a story about "Material Girl" Madonna's latest self-promotional enterprise, photojournalist Peter Menzel had a vision: Rather than take viewers into the mansions of the rich or the "cribs" of MTV celebrities, he wanted to capture the material life of average families around the globe. His resulting book, Material World, offers extraordinary images of families in front of their dwellings with all (or nearly all) of their possessions. Experts at the United Nations and World Bank helped determine the criteria for average families according to location (urban, rural, suburban, small town, or village), type of dwelling, family size, annual income, occupation, and religion. Here, we present five of the photographs Menzel and his team produced, along with updated statistical data for each country.—Susan K. Lewis
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China: The Wu Family
The nine members of this extended family—father Wu Ba Jiu (59), mother Guo Yu
Xian (57), their sons, daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren—live in a
three-bedroom, 600-square-foot dwelling in rural Yunnan Province. While they
have no telephone, they get news and images of a wider world through two radios
and the family's most prized possession, a television. In the future, they hope
to get one with a 30-inch screen as well as a VCR, a refrigerator, and drugs to
combat diseases in the carp they raise in their ponds. Not included in the
photo are their 100 mandarin trees, vegetable patch, and three pigs.
China Stats
Population: 1.3 billion
Population density: 627 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 1.7 children per woman
Population doubling time: 67 years
Percentage urban/rural: 37% urban, 63% rural
Per capita energy use: 905 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 32 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 69 (male), 73 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 7.9% (male), 22.1% (female)
Internet users: 46 million
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India: The Yadev Family
At age 25, Mashre Yadev is already mother to four children, the oldest of whom
was born when she was 17. Each morning at their home in rural Uttar Pradesh, she draws water from a well so that her
older children can wash before school. She cooks over a wood fire in a
windowless, six-by-nine-foot kitchen, and such labor-intensive domestic work
keeps her busy from dawn to dusk. Her husband Bachau, 32, works roughly 56 hours a
week, when he can find work. In rough times, family members have gone more than
two weeks with little food. Everything they own—including two beds, three
bags of rice, a broken bicycle, and their most cherished belonging, a print of
Hindu gods—appears in this photograph.
India Stats
Population: 1.0 billion
Population density: 318 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 3.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 36 years
Percentage urban/rural: 28% urban, 72% rural
Per capita energy use: 494 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 66 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 62 (male), 64 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 32% (male), 55% (female)
Internet users: 7 million
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Japan: The Ukita Family
Like many Japanese women, 43-year-old Sayo Ukita had children relatively late
in life. Her youngest daughter is now in kindergarten, not yet burdened by the
pressures of exams and Saturday "cram school" that face her nine-year-old
sister. Sayo is supremely well-organized, which helps her manage the busy
schedules of her children and maintain order in their 1,421-square-foot Tokyo home
stuffed with clothes, appliances, and an abundance of toys for both her
daughters and dog. She and her husband Kazuo, 45, have all the electronic and gas-powered
conveniences of modern life, but their most cherished possessions are a ring and
heirloom pottery. The family's wish for the future: a larger house with more
storage space.
Japan Stats
Population: 128 million
Population density: 336 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 1.3 children per woman
Population doubling time: 289 years
Percentage urban/rural: 79% urban, 21% rural
Per capita energy use: 4,316 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 3 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 78 (male), 85 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 1% (male), 1% (female)
Internet users: 56 million
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Mali: The Natomo Family
It is not unusual in this West African country for men to have two wives, as
39-year-old Soumana Natomo does. More wives mean more progeny—and a
greater chance you will be supported in old age. Soumana now has eight
children, and his wives, Pama Kondo (28) and Fatouma Niangani Toure (26), will likely have more. How many of
these children will survive, though, is uncertain: Mali's infant mortality rate
ranks among the ten highest in the world. Some of the family's possessions are
not included in this photo—another mortar and pestle for pounding grain,
two wooden mattress platforms, 30 mango trees, and old radio batteries that the
children use as toys. (Note: The Natomos appear on the adobe roof of their house in Kouakourou. An infant
son is nestled in his mother's arms. One daughter is absent.)
Mali Stats
Population: 12 million
Population density: 9.1 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 7.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 23 years
Percentage urban/rural: 26% urban, 64% rural
Per capita energy use: 22 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 118.7 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 48 (male), 49 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 64% (male), 84% (female)
Internet users: 30,000
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United States: The Skeen Family
Rick and Pattie Skeen's 1,600-square-foot house lies on a cul-de-sac in Pearland, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The fire hydrant in this photo is real, but not working—a souvenir from Rick's days as a firefighter. Rick, 36, now splices cables for a phone company. Pattie, 34, teaches school at a Christian academy. To get the picture, photographers hoisted the family up in a cherry picker. Yet the image still leaves out a refrigerator-freezer, camcorder, woodworking tools, computer, glass butterfly collection, trampoline, fishing equipment, and the rifles Rick uses for deer hunting, among other things. Though rich with possessions, nothing is as important to the Skeens as their Bible. For this devoutly Baptist family, like many families around the world, it is a spiritual—rather than material—life that matters most.
U.S. Stats
Population: 292 million
Population density: 29 people per sq. km.
Total fertility rate: 2.0 children per woman
Population doubling time: 116 years
Percentage urban/rural: 78% urban, 22% rural
Per capita energy use: 8,148 kg. oil equivalent
Infant mortality: 6.7 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 74 (male), 80 (female)
Adult illiteracy: 3% (male), 3% (female)
Internet users: 165 million
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Note on Sources
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