Does Conditionality Really Harm Health Standards in Developing Countries? Debt and Dependency.

However, Americans and Europeans are an elite in today's world, dependent on oil and other materials imported from countries with large peasant populations and much lower health standards. If you could choose between being a middle-class American, a Bushman hunter, and a peasant farmer in Ethiopia, the first choice would undoubtedly be the healthiest one, but the third choice might be the least healthy. While giving rise to class divisions for the first time, farming may also have exacerbated sexual inequality already in existence. With the advent of agriculture, women often became beasts of burden, were drained by more frequent pregnancies (see below), and thus suffered poorer health. For example, among the 'Chilean mummies from 1000 AD, women exceeded men in osteoarthritis and in bone lesions from infectious diseases. In New Guinea farming communities today I often see women staggering under a load of vegetables and firewood while the men walk empty-handed. In one case I offered to pay some villagers to carry supplies from an airstrip to my mountain camp, and a group of men, women, and children volunteered ...»