The charts illustrate the degree of participation in education expressed via three categories: monetary investment in research and development, years of schooling, and ratio of scientists and technicians to the total population. The data contrasts numbers for developing and industrialised countries for the years 1980 and 1990.
Although developed countries have seen improvement across each category, a similar pattern is not observed in emerging economies, particularly in terms of their budget for research and development, which decreased from $50 billion to $20 billion over the decade. Meanwhile, spending for industrialised nations in the same category rose from $150 billion to $350 billion.
Moreover, both developing and industrialised states saw an increase in scientists and technicians per thousand people and in the average years of schooling. However, this change was more significant for the latter, where the ratio of scientists grew from 40 to 50 per thousand and the average years of schooling increased by around two years.
Overall, industrialised nations experienced substantial progress, whereas developing nations saw only modest gains, with a notable decline in research and development investment.