Apart from income, health or education, a country’s level of development can also be gauged by looking at household items like refrigerator, television or washing machine, a team of economists has said.

Economists Rutger Schilpzand and Jeroen Smits from Radboud University in the Netherlands have coined the material wealth growth for households called the ‘domestic transition’.

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In their paper published in the Journal of International Development, they describe what this transition means for emerging countries and what factors contribute to a faster transition.

Research on low- and middle-income countries often focuses on income, health or education, but that doesn’t tell you the full story of a country’s situation.

“That’s why, for the first time, we are mapping out how the material wealth of households is developing,’ Schilpzand said.

All these appliances that households in wealthy countries own today represent the basic conditions for what could be called a decent standard of living.

Wealthy countries completed the domestic transition decades ago, but in many developing countries, it is still in progress or may even have only just begun.

The researchers wanted to know whether the transition in emerging countries follows a similar pattern to that in Western countries a few decades earlier. To answer this question, they examined, among others, TV and refrigerator ownership in 1,342 different regions within 88 low and middle-income countries.

The transition did indeed follow a pattern that barely differs from that seen in Western countries. However, both between and within countries substantial differences in the phase and speed of the transition were observed.

“Whereas China and Mexico have already pretty much completed the transition, in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa it has barely begun. There, basic needs, such as food, clothes and shelter, have to be met first, before people can even think about buying a refrigerator,” said Smits.

The data also revealed that the transition starts earlier and progresses faster in cities. Also regions with more economic development and higher levels of education experience a faster transition.