Rostow's stages of economic growth model outlines 5 stages of development: 1) traditional society, 2) preconditions for take-off, 3) take-off, 4) drive to maturity, and 5) age of high mass consumption. The take-off stage involves investment increasing to over 10% of GDP, triggering sustained economic growth. During drive to maturity, new industries replace old ones and agriculture declines as countries industrialize. In the final stage, per capita incomes rise enough for widespread consumer goods consumption. The document discusses these stages and their application to understanding rural development.

1. Josefina B. Bitonio, DPA
MPA 213 Management of Rural and Urban
Development

2. Rural development is a
subset of the broader
term “development”.
Development is a
universally cherished
goal of individuals,
families, communities
and nations all over the
world.

3. The term rural development connotes overall
development of rural areas with a view to improve
quality of life of rural people.
As a phenomenon: it is
the end result of
interactions between
various physical
technological, economic,
socio cultural and
institutional factors
As a strategy: it is
designed to improve
the economic and
social well being of a
specific group of
people – the rural
poor
Robert Chamber, 1983

4. As a discipline, it is multi-
disciplinary in nature,
representing an
intersection of agricultural,
social, behavioral,
engineering and
management sciences.
Robert Chamber, 1983
Rural development is a process leading to sustainable
improvement in the quality of life of rural people,
especially the poor ( katar Singh, 2002)

5. Basic Elements of Rural
Development
1. Basic Necessities in Life – food, shelter,
clothes, basic literacy, primary health care
and security of life and property.
2. Self respect – Every person seeks some sort
of self respect, dignity, or honor. Absence or
denial of self respect indicates lack of
development
3. Freedom – freedom from political, ideological
freedom, economic freedom, and freedom
from social servitude.

6. Growth versus Development
Economic growth is an essential component of
development, it must encompass more than the material and
financial sides of people’s lives. It is a multidimensional process
involving the reorganization and reorientation of both economic
and social systems; improvements in the level of distribution of
incomes and output; involves radical changes in institutional,
social and administrative structures; and although development
is usually defined in a national context, its widespread
realization may necessitate fundamental modifications of the
international economic, social and political systems as well

7. Concept of Multi-dimensional
The summation of economic, environmental,
political, and social considerations for the
present and especially for the future

8. Why Rural Development?
The seriousness of rural poverty in the
Philippines has long been recognized. From the
1960s to the ’90s, a succession of Philippine
presidents embarked on a number of rural
development programs to address this situation.
All of the programs met with little success.

9. One observer (Serrano 1999) describes these
past anti-poverty efforts in this way: “Every regime
… promised to reduce poverty; the last two even
declared total war against it. Not one made good
on its promise in a real way. Poverty seems much
easier to create and reproduce than real
prosperity. Indeed, poverty has become the most
durable feature of Philippine reality.
http://www.socialwatch.org/sites/default/files/pdf/en/articleb2001_phi.pdf

10. • These are among the key findings of the report titled
Making Growth Work for the Poor : A Poverty
Assessment fur the Philippines released May 20,
2018 by the World Bank.
• From 2006 to 2015, the latest available data, the
report says that robust economic growth helped the
poverty rate in the Philippines to fall by 5 percentage
points. Poverty declined from 26.6 percent in 2006 to
21.6 percent in 2015, due to factors like the
expansion of jobs outside agriculture, government
transfers, in particular to qualified poor Filipinos
through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program, and remittances.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/05/30/philippines-
poverty-rate-declines-more-well-paying-jobs-and-opportunities-needed

11. In Muslim Mindanao, with 2,057,479 and 1,990,503 poor
Filipinos, respectively. The magnitude of poor population
is also high in Region 8, Region 6, Region 10 and
Region 12, with roughly around 1.7 million poor
individuals residing in each region. In contrast, the
National Capital Region and the Cordillera Administrative
Region have the least number of poor people.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/revisiting-our-poverty-statistics/
Official statistics in 2015 show that 21,927,009
individuals in the country are estimated to be living
below the national poverty line.

12. The poverty threshold, poverty limit
or poverty line is the minimum level of
income deemed adequate in a particular
country. ... In October 2015, the World Bank
updated the international poverty line to
$1.90 a day.

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold#/media/File:Percent_Poverty_World_Map.png

14. According to the
PSA, the national
poverty threshold in
2015 stood at P10,969
per month (P131,628
per annum), meaning a
family of five needed to
earn that much to be
able to eat, have
shelter, travel, buy
medicine, or go to
school, among other
life necessities.

15. The report emphasizes the importance of
breaking the cycle of inequitable investment
in human capital and lack of well-paying job
opportunities that trap the poor in poverty,
generation after generation. Children from
poor households start life at a disadvantage.
Malnourished and stunted, with poor access
to quality health care, they are less likely to
learn the skills they need and fulfill their
potential.
Making Growth Work for the Poor : A Poverty
Assessment for the Philippines

16. As adults, therefore, they earn low incomes and
cannot afford to invest in their own children. They
have little to meet their basic needs and nothing
to save against emergencies. Frequent natural
disasters buffet the poor, whose limited means to
cope and disproportionate suffering push them
deeper into poverty. Poverty is a threat to peace.
In the parts of the country affected by conflict,
where physical assets have been destroyed,
families displaced, and human capital eroded,
people are trapped in a cycle of conflict and
poverty

17. In addition to the challenges
of addressing poverty, the
Philippines is hindered by the
limited expansion of its middle
class. In the East Asia region over
2002-2015, the share of
population that is economically
secure and middle class
increased from just over one
fifth to nearly two-thirds, but the
share in the Philippines
increased from 37 percent to just
44 percent.

18. The lack of well-paying
jobs limited the gains for labor
from structural transformation.
Every year, 1 percent of the
employment shifted out of
agriculture, but most of those
workers end up in low-end
services jobs. Such limited
gains for labor could
negatively affect the country’s
long-term competitiveness

19. The report concludes that making the pattern of
growth more inclusive and providing more well-paying
jobs will be crucial to helping people achieve higher
and more stable incomes. It claims that steps to
accelerate poverty reduction include
creating more well-paying jobs;
improving productivity in all sectors, including
agriculture; reducing income and wealth inequality
through more investments in people and skills
development, enhancing the ability of the poor to
participate in growth; rebuilding conflict-affected
areas; and better management of risks and
protection of the vulnerable.
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29960?show=full

20. Rising Expectations and Development
Particular expectation differ from person to
person and from region to region, but the
expectation of marked improvement in
material conditions of life is general
throughout the world. People expect to have
better diet, clothes, houses, education, a
secure life, and freedom from serviture

21. Explanation for this expectation
• Demonstration of rural elite, urban rich and
foreign tourist engaging in ostentatious
consumption of exotic and luxurious goods has
distorted the consumption and utility functions
of the poor;
• Films, radios, TV and advertising have exposed
the masses to modern gadgets and lifestyles.
Common man has learned about new products,
services .

22. • Local and national politician have assured the
rural poor of the modern amenities of life if
they would vote for them
• The central government have declared time
and again the eradication of poverty is their
major policy goal;

23. • The economies of most developing
countries can not possibly fulfill
these expectations in the immediate
future and there is bound a collision
between rising expectations and
economic reality.
It is this that makes rapid agricultural
and economic development a national
imperative.

24. Development and Change• In the context of rural development, a change
may be considered to be an instrument which
can be used to promote rural development.
The introduction of technological advances in
the mid 60’s , plus new high yielding varieties
of crops, fertilizers, improved farm machinery
and pesticides;
modern milk processing and feed processing plants,
artificial insemination of dairy materials and
organizational innovations like cooperatives in India.

25. In Taiwan and
People’s Republic in
China, agricultural
development was
largely a result of
institutional reforms,
esp. land reforms and
technological
advances.

26. Autonomous or Induced Development
• Development planning is one of the forms of
interventions that has become a fad in many
developing countries of the world and is considered
a magic door to development. Even in advanced
countries have come to realize the need for some
sort of planning or government intervention in the
economic processes. It seems that there is a
growing consensus around the statement that any
planning is better than no planning at all and
decentralized planning is better than centralized
planning

27. It is now increasingly apparent that the
development effort can not be left to the
government alone; it must be shared by private,
cooperative, corporate and other NGOs and
agencies and above all by the people themselves.
Planning by the government should complement
and supplement the efforts of individuals and
NGOs.
Planning can make a positive contribution only if
it facilitate the achievement of development
objectives more rapidly and more efficiently than if
development followed natural forces

28. The Concept of
Development

30. 1. Traditional Society
This society signifies a primitive society having no
access to modern science and technology. It is a society
based on primi-tive technology and primitive attitude
towards the physical World. Thus, Rostow defines a
tradi­tional society “as one whose structure is developed
within the limited production function. However, Rostow
does not view this traditional society as being completely
static.

31. In this stage of a society output could be
increasing through the expansion of land area
under cultivation or through the discovery and
spread of a new crop. But the critical fact about
this type of society is that there is limit to
attainable output per head. This limit arises due
to the absence of access to modern science and
technology. This type of a society allocates a
large proportion of its resources to agriculture
and is characterized by a hierarchical social
structure in which there is little possibility for
vertical mobility.

32. What is the take off stage?
Rostow's Take-Off Stage of Economic
Growth. The self-reliant growth is also
known as take off, an initial push, a big
push, a critical minimum effort, a great lead
forward. All the concepts mean that
economic growth starts with a bang, and
not with a whisper

33. 2. Pre-Conditions or the
Preparatory Stage
These conditions mainly comprise fundamental changes in the
social, political and economic fields; for example:
(a) A change in society’s attitudes towards science, risk-
taking and profit-earning;
(b) The adaptability of the labor force;
(c) Political sovereignty;
(d) Development of a centralized tax system and financial
institutions; and
(e) The construction of certain economic and social
infrastructure like railways, ports, power generation and
educational institutions.

34. Further, there is a change in the attitude of the
people who start viewing the world where there are
possibilities of future growth. A new class of
entrepreneurs emerges in the society who mobilize
savings and undertake investment in new enterprises
and bear risks and uncertainty. In the sphere of political
organization, it is during this stage that an effective
centralized nation state starts emerging.
It is evident from above that in
this second stage of growth
foundations for economic
transfor-mation are laid. The
people start using modern
science and technology
for increasing productivity
in both agriculture and
industry.

35. • Thus in the stage of precondition for take-off Rostow
views agriculture as performing three roles, first,
agriculture must produce sufficient food-grains to
meet the demand of growing population and of the
workers who get employment in agriculture.
• Secondly, increase in agricultural incomes would lead
to the demand for industrial products and stimulate
industrial investment.
• Thirdly, expand-ing agriculture must provide much of
the savings needed for the expansion of the industrial
sector.

36. 3. The “Take-off” Stage
• This is the crucial stage which covers a relatively
brief period of two to three decades in which the
economy transforms itself in such a way that
economic growth subsequently takes place more or
less automatically. “The take-off” is defined as “the
interval during which the rate of investment increases
in such a way that real output per capita rises and
this initial increase carries with it radical changes in
the techniques of production and the disposition of
income flows which perpetuate the new scale of
investment and perpetuate thereby the rising trend in
per capita output.”

37. • Thus, the term “take-off ” implies three
things : first the proportion of investment to
national income must rise from 5% to 10%
and more so as to outstrip
the likely population growth; secondly, the
period must be relatively short so that it
should show the characteristics of an
economic revolution; and thirdly, it must
culminate in self-sustaining and self-
generating economic growth

38. 4. Drive to Maturity: Period of Self-
sustained Growth
• This stage of economic growth occurs when the economy
becomes mature and is capable of generating self-
sustained growth. The rates of saving and investment are of
such a magnitude that economic development becomes
automatic. Overall capital per head increases as the
economy matures. The structure of the economy changes
increasingly.
• The initial key industries which sparked the take-off
decelerate as diminishing returns set in. But the average
rate of growth is maintained by a succession of new rapidly-
growing sectors with a new set of leading sectors. The
proportion of the population engaged in agriculture and
other rural pursuit’s declines, and the structure of the
country’s foreign trade undergoes a radical change.

39. 5. Stage of Mass Consumption
In this stage of development per capita income of
country rises to such a high level that consumption
basket of the people increases beyond food, clothing
and shelters to articles of comforts and luxuries on a
mass scale. Further, with progressive industrialization
and urbanization of the economy values of people
change in favor of more consumption of luxuries and
high styles of living. New types of industries producing
durable consumer goods come into existence which
satisfies the wants for more consumption. These new
industries producing durable consumer goods become
the new leading sectors of economic growth.

40. • As a multi-dimensional
process involving changes in
structures, attitudes, and
institutions as well as the
acceleration of economic
growth, the reduction of
inequality, and the eradication
of absolute poverty
Michael Todaro 1977

41. Sustainable Development
• Defined as “development that meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs” (World
Commission on Environment and Development,
1987), sustainable development
has emerged as the guiding principle for long- term
global development. Consisting of three
pillars, sustainable development seeks to achieve,
in a balanced manner, economic development,
social development and environmental protection.

42. Critique of Rostow’s
Stages of Growth

43. Photo credits to:
Lino Tabangin
Josie Lee Villaver
Himaya B. Bitonio

44. Reference
Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth
• http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/economics
/rostows-five-stages-of-growth-
explained/38235 (Accessed Aug 11, 2018)
• Katar Singh
Rural Development, 2nd Ed. Sage Publication
New Delhi, India