Developed “First” World

The first world, now known as the developed, industrialized, or Western world, are terms used to describe countries that have collectively attained a good standard of living, a high per capita gross national product and a strongly diversified technology base. The United Nations (UN) state that “developed countries tend to have high gross domestic products, high literacy rates, minimal spread of poverty, and are technologically advanced.”

Standard of living describes the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people in any given country. It is generally measured by real (i.e., inflation adjusted) income per person, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country is defined as the total value of final goods and services produced within a country's borders in a year, regardless of ownership. Neither standard of living nor GDP are the same as “quality of life,” which takes into account a variety of other factors that determine social well being such as recreation, safety, cultural diversity, social life, mental health, and environmental quality issues. The UN Human Development Index (HDI), identifies countries with an HDI measurement of over .8 as falling within the developed world category. Categories within the HDI include life expectancy, poverty, literacy, and healthcare.

According to the UN, Economic Division countries—including Japan, Canada, the United States, Australia and most countries in the European Union—are First World countries. While statistical analyses can be useful in differentiating between the social and economic status and welfare of nations, the term First World—like Third World—is essentially a political term that has many other connotations attached to its use.

The term was first used after the end of World War II, when the parties to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pacts became known as the western and eastern blocs. Many countries did not fit into either category, with the remaining often referred to as belonging to the Third World. The countries belonging to the First and Third Worlds have changed with the political times, and today, the terms developing or First World are often derided for being too Western and paternalistic in focus, presuming superiority by one group of nations over others.

This does not hide the fact that inhabitants of First World countries do enjoy a substantially higher standard of living than do those living in the Third World. The socio-economic advantage that the First World has gained over the Third World has come at a significant environmental cost. Raven notes that “there is [Page 454]an important linkage between such factors as human population density, rate of growth, consumption and the choice of particular technologies on the one hand, and the state of the environment on the other.”

Approximately 25 percent of the world's people reside within developed countries, yet consume 80 percent of the world's nonfuel minerals. The United States, while comprising only five percent of the world's population, consumes up to 30 percent of the worlds resources. Environmental impacts from the consumption of resources by the First World is having a major impact on the world's environment and climate with most of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases being those countries in the developed world. Australia, for example, has the highest emissions of climate changing gases by any country on a per capita basis, and they are equal to six times more than those emitted by China. For context, Australia's population is 20 million, whereas China's is 1.3 billion.

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