UCSB Hist 2c: World History, 1700-pres.

The "Global Village"

Handout for Discussion Section, Week 1

(Hist 2c Course homepage, Prof's homepage)

created February 13, 2007, updated 3/31/08

The Global Village
[note 3/31/08: I am preparing a 2008 version that will supercede this one.
See the background history by by Carolyn Jones at odtmaps.com.]

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this
[compare to the demographics of the 2006 2c course]:

According to an unverified e-mail circulating since 1996
[3/31/08: 1990 article by D. Meadows]

According to research in 2001 by Rekha Balu, Christine Engelken & Jennifer Grosso, published at:
www.fastcompany.com/articles/2001/05/email2.html

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 from the Western Hemisphere

8 Africans

52 would be female, 48 would be male

70 would be non-white, 30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian






6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth , and all 6 would be from the United States

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death,
1 would be near birth

1 would have a college education

1 would own a computer

89 would be heterosexual, 11 homosexual

 

60 Asians [1]

12 Europeans

15 from the Western Hemisphere
(9 S. Americans, 5 N. Americans, and 1 Oceanian)

13 Africans

50 would be female, 50 would be male [2]

80 would be non-white, 20 would be white [3]

67 would be non-Christian, 33 Christian [4]
67: 20 Muslims, 13 Hindus, 13 non-religious, 6 Buddhists, 6 Chinese folk religionists, 4 Ethnic Religionists, 2 atheists, 2 New Religionists. The one remaining person in the village would represent all other religions, with Sikhs, Jews, Spiritists, Baha'is, Confucians, & Jains as some of the larger groups in this category.


20 people would earn 89% of the entire world's wealth [5]

25 would live in substandard housing [6]

17 would be unable to read [7]

13 would suffer from malnutrition [8]

1 would die within the year,
2 would give birth within the year [9]

2 would have a college education [10]

4 would own a computer [11]

We were unable to find a consensus on the ratio of hetersexual to homosexual people in the world and subsequently omitted that statistic.

[1] Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, "World Population Prospects: The 2000 Revision."

[2] Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census International Data Base, Table 094: Midyear Population by Age and Sex 2001.

[3] Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census International Data Base, Table 001: Total Midyear Population 2001, assuming the populations of South America, Asia, and Africa are "non-white" and those of North America, Europe, and Oceania are "white."

Source: Britannica Book of the Year 1999, "Religious Population of the World, 1998," reprinted at infoplease.com, using numbers from the "Christians" heading only for the Christian percentage.

[5] Source: The International Herald Tribune, February 5, 1999, cited in the World Income Inequality table.

[6] Source: Habitat for Humanity International, "Why Habitat is Needed."

[7] Source: UNICEF, "The State of the World's Children 1999."

[8] Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization report, cited at OBGYN.net.

[9] Source: U.S. Census Bureau, World Vital Events Per Time Unit 2001.

[10] Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Education Indicators, Gross Enrollment Ratio by Sex.

[11] Source: UN Human Development Indicators, "Access to Information and Communications 1995."

prepared for web by Harold Marcuse, Feb. 13, 2007, updated: see header
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