This map shows the poverty levels of the most-searched countries. According to Go Overseas 2012 Official Volunteer Abroad Report, countries ranked from 1 to 48 were the most frequently searched for volunteer programs. The high levels of searches demonstrate volunteers' interest in those countries. Notably, many of the countries that were most frequently searched did not have the highest poverty levels. For example, 87.7 percent Madagascar's population is below the poverty level, but it did not make the most-frequently-searched list. Similarly, 40.8 percent of Niger's population, 62 percent of Nigeria's population and 74.3 percent of Zambia's population fall below the poverty level. However, none of these countries were on the most-frequently-search list, indicating that other factors (besides poverty) were important to volunteers' decisions.
The poverty level data used is from the World Bank and is defined as the percentage of the population that lives on less than $1.25 per day (based upon international prices in 2005). The poverty levels are not all updated to the same year, and some countries are not represented in the map because they lacked data.
10 years ago
