This country comparison paper will be comparing four countries: Haiti, which is the low income country, Vietnam, which is the lower-middle-income country, China, which is the upper-middle-income country, and the United Kingdom, which is the high-income country (Country and Lending, n.d.). Haiti, the low-income country, has the worst numbers compared to all of the other countries. The life expectancy of a person that lives in Haiti is 63 years. (Life Expectancy, n.d.). There are many factors that cause this low life expectancy. First of all, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Almost 80% of the people that are living in Haiti are living in extreme poverty. The average income of a person in Haiti is $250. Extreme poverty results …show more content…
Haiti also has an extremely high rate of fertility; it is about 3.2 births per woman. Haiti has the highest fertility out of all the countries that are being compared (Fertility rate, n.d.). For such a poor country, the women of Haiti shouldn’t have so many kids, but they can’t do much to stop it. One of the factors that contribute to high fertility is the lack of contraceptives. The clinics that had contraceptives were destroyed by the earthquake in Haiti, the author, Meghan Pierce, talks about how fertility in Haiti tripled because of the earthquake (Pierce, 2013, para. 2). Another factor of such high fertility in Haiti is because abortions are illegal. (Pierce, 2013, para. 4) Haiti also has an extremely high infant mortality rate; it is 55 infants per 1,000 live births (Mortality rate, n.d.). Some diseases and sicknesses that lead to death at such a young age for these infants are malaria, diarrhea, and tuberculosis. Unfortunately, due to the amount of poverty in Haiti, many infants do not have a chance to access any type of health care when they get sick, so that’s why so many of them pass before they turn one years old (At a glance, n.d.). The literacy rate in Haiti is