what is the third world 
certain nations were categorized as third world countries in the last half of the 20th century this is now considered an outdated and derogatory phrase used to describe nations that were economically underdeveloped and had little or no affiliation with major world powers the third world countries occupied one of four segments that identified nations by their relative economic standing roughly the major world powers and their economic and political allies were first world countries allies of the soviet union were second world countries underdeveloped nations were third world countries and nations that were entirely isolated from global politics and economics were the fourth world today the preferred terminology categorizes a nation as a developing country an underdeveloped country or a low and middle income country lmic defining developing nationsclassifying countries as first second third and fourth world was a concept that was created soon after the end of world war ii in 1945 and used until the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 nations are often characterized by their economic status and key economic metrics like gross domestic product gdp gdp growth gdp per capita employment growth and unemployment rate in developing countries low production rates and struggling labor market characteristics are usually paired with relatively low levels of education poor infrastructure lack of sanitation limited access to health care and lower costs of living developing nations are closely watched by the international monetary fund imf and the world bank which provide grants and loans that help struggling nations improve their infrastructure and economic systems 1both organizations refer to these countries as lower middle or low income countries developing nations or lmics are of particular interest to investors seeking to identify growth opportunities both their risks and their returns are relatively high developing countries are generally characterized as economic underperformers but innovation and industrial breakthroughs can lead to substantial improvements in a short amount of time history of developing nations classificationsthe classification of nations as first world or third world emerged during the cold war first world countries were known as highly industrialized nations whose views aligned with the north atlantic treaty organization and capitalism second world countries had communist systems and most were allied with the soviet union these included the soviet satellite states in eastern europe and some asia nations third world countries included nations in asia and africa that were not aligned with either the united states or the soviet union now in part because the soviet union no longer exists the definition of third world is outdated and may be considered offensive alfred sauvy a french demographer anthropologist and historian is credited with coining the term third world during the cold war sauvy observed a group of countries many of them former colonies that did not share the ideological views of western capitalism or soviet socialism three worlds one planet wrote sauvy in a 1952 article published in l observateur 2dividing the worldmost nations today fall into one of three general categories that some refer to as developed emerging and frontier the former world segmentations have been fit into these categories for the most part the developed countries are the most industrialized with the strongest economic characteristics the emerging countries demonstrate significant strides in various economic growth areas though their metrics are not as stable the frontier markets often closely mirror the old third world classification and often show the lowest economic indicators frontier markets listmsci s frontier markets index can serve as a list of developing countries 3 the index includes the following countries other definitions of developing nationsthe world trade organization provides another point of reference the wto divides countries into two classes developing and least developed there are no criteria for these classifications so countries self nominate though their statuses can be contested by other nations 5each wto segregation comes with certain opportunities for the nations wto projects are designed to increase trading opportunities and improve infrastructure as an offshoot of the wto the human development index hdi is another economic status metric developed by the united nations to assess the social and economic development levels of countries the hdi measures and then ranks a country based on education life expectancy and gross national income per capita the world health organization and the united nations use least developed countries ldc to describe a set of 48 countries with low socioeconomic developmental indicators this list is reassessed every few years the indicators are a combination of gross national income human assets nutrition life expectancy secondary school education adult literacy and economic vulnerability population size remoteness merchandise export concentration agriculture exports and natural disaster preparedness 