There is a well-established empirical relationship between income and the proportion of expenditure on food. This relationship is known as Engel’s Law, after the Belgium economist Ernst Engel (1821-1896). This law states that as people’s income rises, they spend relatively less of the household’s budget on food. This phenomenon is found within countries, where the working class spends a relatively larger proportion of their income on food compared to middle and upper classes. It is also found on a cross-country basis, where poor countries spend relatively much more of their GNP on food compared to wealthier countries. In the USA and many European countries, the proportion spent on food is well below 20 per cent, while in poorest garment-producing countries it is well over 50 per cent. For this research we try to cluster garment-producing/exporting countries around their food-share in household budgets. 

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