What do you picture when you think of a third world country?
What is a third world country?
The term ?Third World? started during the Cold War. Those countries aligned with NATO and the United States were labeled ?First World?.
Those countries that aligned with Russia were labeled ?Second World?
Everybody else, about 3/4 of the worlds population, got the name Third World.
So as you can see, this idea of First, Second, and Third world countries really had nothing to do with economic status and more to do with who aligned with whom during the Cold War.
So What do people really mean when they say ?Third World Country??
People often think of poverty, starvation, an unstable country.
We have a pretty annoying saying in the U.S. when something doesn?t go your way. We would say ?first world Problems!?. Oh my iPhone stopped working, ?First world problems!?. My internet shut off ?first world problems!?, my car broke down ?first world problems!!?
The real problem with this, well there are a lot of problems with this, but one problem with this is the ?Third World Countries? have iPhones, internet, and they drive cars!
So is Mexico a ?Third World? Country.
Yes.
Using the model developed during the Cold War, Mexico is technically a Third world country, but as we stated, I think we can all agree that ?Third World? is a pretty outdated and useless term.
To the second question- is it poor, starving, hungry, do they have new technology like iPhones!?
Yes of course they have iPhones, the internet, and all of the latest gadgets!
Mexico actually has the 15th highest GDP in the world.
Ahead of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, and a couple hundred other countries.
Obviously GDP doesn?t tell the whole story
In our day to day life living in Mexico City, we definitely do not feel like Mexico is a ?third world country?
However we do realize there are some areas of Mexico that unfortunately do not have some of the same resources as many of the areas that we have been lucky enough to visit.
We are not here to pretend that Mexico is perfect and that there aren?t severely undeserved areas.
We simply want to clarify that 1) The term ?Third World? is somewhat meaningless and 2) These so called ?Third World? countries have ?First World? problems too!
Technically- Mexico is listed by the UN as a developing economy. Other developing economies include:Costa Rica, China, Brazil, the UAE, and about 50 other countries!
When looking at the economy per capita of each county, the UN divides the world into 4 categories.
High income, Upper Middle, Lower Middle, and Low Income.
Mexico is ranked in the upper middle category.
The UN also has a category of the ?least developed? countries and ?heavily indebted poor? countries.
Mexico is not on either of these lists.
A few countries on these lists include Ethiopia, Chad, Liberia, and Afghanistan.
What?s the point here?
Grouping an entire country into one term is difficult. Especially when that term is outdated. We have seen poverty stricken areas of Mexico and we have also seen some of the most lavish and luxurious areas that are a notch above anything I ever saw in Dallas.
I think too often we classify not for the sake of clarifying, but for the sake of disempowering.
We have money, therefor we are happier!
We have a bigger nucleur button, therefor we are better!
No matter what way you try to clasify Mexico, it will always be a country full of strong, resilient, and kind people.
In attempting to clarify the matter, I made have just muddied the waters!
Either way, we are going to keep enjoying our time here in Mexico and giving you a few shots and laughs along the way.
Thank you so much for reading amigos!
Keep it Kinetic,
Greg and Hillary Kennon
