As an American living in the Philippines I hear the term “Third World” nation virtually every day.  I often hear in from fellow Americans in an off-handed derogatory manner … whenever something doesn’t go exactly the way the American feels it should be done the old “Third World” adjective creeps into the conversation.  I often hear it also from Filipino friends and media people, in many cases ones who ought to know better but denigrate their own country anyway … from force of habit I suppose.

What is a “Third World” nation?  turns out it is a pretty ill-defined terms.  One definition is:

A name that came into use during the 1960s to distinguish the rest of the world from the two Cold War power blocs of the capitalist west (United States and Europe) and the Communist east (Soviet Union, eastern Europe and China). These were the first and second worlds, respectively; the rest was the Third World. www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/browse/glossary.html

This is the definition I grew up with.  When it was a current definition it didn’t really define the Philippines, since in those years the Philippines was a strong US ally … certainly never a non-aligned nation  So what other definitions might work?

a rather vague term used to describe those regions of the world in which levels of development, as understood by such measures as GDP, are significantly below those of the economically more advanced regions. The term is increasingly seen as an inadequate description of the prevailing world situation since it disguises a significant amount of internal differentiation.
media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk/0131217666/student/0131217666_glo.html

Now this, and a dozen similar ones might be the more popular ones of today. They are mainly based upon economic status and particularly a county’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or a better tool, the GNI, GDP plus inflows from overseas such as Overseas Foreign Worker salaries.  If you look at the World Bank’s data GNI on this the Philippines is certainly well down on the list … but also hardly at the bottom.

The World bank also ranks countries into economic groups, from the very rich to the very poor.  the Philippines rank? Lower Middle Income.

So even though there are plenty poor people in the Philippines I think the age-old habit of dismissing everything as “Third World” is a habit that needs to change.

Popularity: unranked [?]