The Economic Effects of Handicrafts in Society
Handicraft has considerable effects in reducing and modifying social issues and economic development. In this article, we want to review the economic effects of handicrafts which are investigated in some different dimensions.
Table of contents
The Effect of Handicraft in Increasing Per Capita Income
Nowadays, making an effort to increase per capita income has turned into an unceasing competition among different countries of the world. It seems that even if the third world countries be able to maintain the present distance and gap between them and the advanced industrial governments, they are successful in their plans. So there is no doubt that each factor that may help the per capita income of developing countries increase is of high importance.
The economic effects of handicrafts are so important for countries. Handicraft is bale to be developed more than any other economic activity due to advantages like “job seeking-ness,” “technique simplicity” and “no need to extensive technical education” and its significant effect on “increasing employment.”
Especially handicrafts may be considered as the second source of income in rural and nomadic regions. As the most important factor of work and income in some parts of Iran. Fortunately, with the recent development of communicational ways and transportation networks, the villagers have much more possible to have access to urban markets more than ever. Also, they can offer their handicrafts to the urban applicants paying the least cost and in the shortest time.
The Role of Handicraft in National Product
Another economic effects of handicrafts are the role of this industry in national products. Regarding that, producing handicraft fundamentally relies on internal resources. Therefore, more than 90% of the data value in this branch, mainly including workforce, consumable raw materials, work tools, and instruments. An increase in producing and selling handicraft products directly influences “Gross National Product” (GNP).
Some developing nations make an effort to, instead of exporting raw materials like cotton, wool, kenaf, skin, wool, and silk, transform them into handmade products. They are skillful in making them and export their products with significant value to the developed nations.
Unluckily, due to lack of accurate statistics and information from per capita income of handicraft in developing countries the total national products of different countries is not possible. This highly results from the importance of these product’s self-consumption factors in handicraft regions. But we mention some of these estimations and statistics here. For example, handicraft has enjoyed a 14% share of the national income.
So many developing countries have mentioned the share of handicrafts between 8% and 16% in national income. According to the latest estimations, the share of handicrafts in Iran’s national income is around 5%. This percent is negligible compared with some governments considering the potential history and facilities of this “art industry.”
The Effects of Handicraft in Developing Exports
The economic basis of developing nations is in such a way that they need foreign currency to perform their economic and social plans. This is another one of the economic effects of handicrafts. So developing exporting including exporting raw materials, semi-manufactured goods, and handicraft and as a result, creating foreign currency incomes not only considered important by the third world nations but also by some developed nations. Especially the original counters of making handicrafts. Try to provide the backgrounds for exporting handicraft growth.
The achievements in the field of exporting handicrafts have resulted from the following reasons:
- Dissimilarity and the lack of competitive aspect between handmade products and the industrial products of developed nations.
- The relative cheapness of industrial goods due to low wages in developing nations.
- The high purchasing power of people in developed nations and their interests in purchasing and using (artistic-consumable) things.
- Considering some social and political considerations from developed nations which determines quota and customs exemptions for the exporting handmade products of the third world nations.
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