Name: __________________________________ Period: ____________________ Date: _____________ Where was your shirt made? Introduction Do you know where your clothes were made? There’s a good chance that they were produced in a developing country. Developing countries are ones that are less industrialized, and tend to have lower standards of living, more pollution, and fewer basic human rights. One piece of data used to classify countries is their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, which is the total economic output of that country divided by its population. Data Collection Poll each of your classmates to find out what countries their shirts were made. Use Google or Wolfram Alpha and find the most recent gross domestic product per capita for that country, and record it in the data table below. Country GDP per capita Country GDP per capita Graph your class data in a bar graph format. The country will go on the X-axis, and the GDP per capita will go on the Y-axis. Start with the poorest country. Shade in each country identified by you or a classmate on the map below. The developed and developing classifications for countries is a spectrum; there isn’t a specific point where a country automatically becomes developed. Using the diagram below as a guide, mark where on the spectrum your country would fall. Discussion Questions 1. Why are so many of our clothes made in developing countries? 2. The amount of the retail price of a piece of clothing that pays the worker’s wage is low. The Clean Clothes campaign estimates that the actual percent is usually between 0.5% and 5.0%. Where does the rest of the money go? 3. With any product made like this, there are hidden costs and visible costs. The visible cost would be the final price of the clothing. What are the hidden costs? Who pays them?
