Research Achievements

Excellent papers on Asian regional integration, which are prepared mainly by young researchers such as GIARI members, co-researchers, research fellows, and research assistants, will be published as working papers. Contributed papers, written in English or in Japanese, will be reviewed and examined by the editorial committee before publication. GIARI donates published papers to the libraries of Waseda and other related universities, research organizations, etc.

Impacts of Globalization on Quality of Life: Evidence from Developing Countries
Jeet Bahadur Sapkota, Ph.D.
file[223KB]

This paper evaluates the impacts of globalization on quality of life, particularly on human development, gender development and human poverty in developing countries. Applying the fixed effect model to the annual panel data of 124 developing countries covering nine years from 1997, it shows that globalization (in terms of its comprehensive indexes and key elements) not only promotes human and gender development, but also significantly reduces human poverty. Not surprisingly, all the three aspects of globalization (economic, social and political) contribute to the overall effect of globalization. In general, the results from the key elements of globalization are consistent with the results from the comprehensive indexes. However, it is also observed that political and social globalization, FDI, and international migration were insignificant to gender-related development. Thus, further research is suggested for appropriate policy recommendations to make these variables significant on promoting gender aspects of development.

Globalization, human development, gender development, human poverty, developing countries

I am grateful to the Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI), Global Center of Excellence Program, Waseda University for excellent research funding. I thank Prof. Shujiro Urata and Prof. Nobuhiko Fuwa for helpful comments.