Kitchens in the World, by Income per Month

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street?topic=kitchens

by walterbell • 4 years ago

97 85 4 years ago

Puts in perspective my "woe is me, I don't have counter space for a pressure cooker" whining...

glanzwulf• 4 years ago

To me it puts in perspective my groceries. Sometimes I spend more in one time than the entire monthly budget a lot of these people have.

Agentlien• 4 years ago

What really put things into perspective for me was seeing how despite the terrible gap in living conditions the "families" category just showed a bunch of pictures and videos of what looked to me like perfectly ordinary families.

It really helps show that people are just people and highlight the disparity of their circumstances.

lelandfe3• 4 years ago

YES. Exactly. I’m loving seeing all the smiling people. This website is an amazing facilitator of empathy and a way to break down that “otherness”

Nope - babies are still cute, and parents are still cooking amazing food all over the world! More of this.

Gigachad3• 4 years ago

Why not just store appliances not being used somewhere else? For me the only things that stay on the counter are a kettle and espresso machine. If I want to make toast I’ll just pull the toaster out of the cupboard.

kiliantics• 4 years ago

Very cool site. While the disparity is pretty obvious in things like kitchens, it's also interesting to see just how similar most of us live when going through the categories of e.g. worship, applying make up, pets, etc.

KoftaBob• 4 years ago

Unsurprisingly, even at the lower income levels, the US kitchens are quite a bit larger than those with comparable incomes in other countries.

ciceryadam• 4 years ago

Yep, standard US stoves are 30 inches wide, whereas standard EU stoves are 60cm/24 inches wide.

Ekaros3• 4 years ago

I think it generally comes to floorplans in USA having more well floor... So if ratio for kitchen is similar it still means larger in space.

Ekaros3• 4 years ago

Really puts things in perspective again. With even my plans

Just bought new apartment. Was considering adding more surface and some cabinets in kitchen. That is 3+3 cabinets and work surface about 160cm in width. Price 1000€+ plus installation and delivery...

Really does put things in perspective. So much for rather small amount of space and not even any appliances. Just some cupboards with doors...

In the end I will just buy still pretty expensive shelf, for fraction of cost.

TheSpiceIsLife2• 4 years ago

Do you mean to write 10,000?

Aeolun• 4 years ago

Is that really expensive though? Someone has to cut the wood, someone has to transport it, then someoneone will cut up the trees, someone will finish the wood, someone will build a cabinet out of it, and then someone will deliver it to your door. All those people need to be paid for your cabinet to exist.

I like to consider how much people would have to pay me to spend a similar amount of time, and the cost would be much, much higher than €1000.

Ekaros3• 4 years ago

That is the price for one from IKEA. Apart from the surface entirely build from standard parts that are probably made with relatively high levels of automation. In the end it seems expensive to me.

throw0101a• 4 years ago

In the end I will just buy still pretty expensive shelf, for fraction of cost.

The "kitchen triangle" seems to be an important thing to keep in mind when (re)designing kitchen layouts:

Developed in the early twentieth century, the working triangle—also known as "the kitchen triangle," also known as "the golden triangle"—is a theory that states a kitchen’s three main work areas should form, you guessed it, a triangle. Specifically, the sink, the refrigerator, and the stove.

* https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kitchen-triangle-b...

The total summed distance between those three appliances should (ideally) be in the range of 13-26 feet (4-8m); each side/edge of the triangle should ideally be in the 4-9 foot (1.5-3m) range.

Then each of the sink, the refrigerator, and stove should have have a certain minimum counter space around it:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_work_triangle

aequitas• 4 years ago

I also encountered this theory while designing our new kitchen but I doubt it's value for home kitchens regarding the refrigerator. In our current (old) kitchen we have moved the refrigerator to a different room next to the kitchen with a door in between. I don't notice much of a difference in efficiency or annoyance. Most of the time you gather all cold ingredients before cooking anyways so there is not much back and forth during cooking.

The stove and sink distance is more important I think, as well of a place to hang towels close to the sink so you can quickly wash after touching meat or sticky stuff. Our current towel rack is off to the far end of the kitchen and causes a lot of walking around.

One thing I also keep in mind, but this is more cabinet placement, is the orchestration when setting the table or other interruptions during the cooking (eg: kids washing their hands). Ideally you don't want your spouse/kids to have to pass you when you are standing in front of a hot stove or cutting with a sharp knife. So move the plates, cutlery and stuff to the edges of the kitchen (and also take into account the dishwasher and place to store dirty dishes).

golergka4• 4 years ago

Weird; I expected the most high-income kitchens to be either absent or completely unused. Don't nigh income individuals mostly rely on eating out and food delivery? As a digital nomad, I haven't cooked anything even once in most hotels/airbnbs I've lived at during the last 3 months.

NathanWilliams• 4 years ago

Cooking can be enjoyable and relaxing for some of us. Something to take pride from.

How rewarding it is to see someone genuinely enjoy something you made.

golergka4• 4 years ago

I completely agree with that. But this still means that cooking is more of a hobby, and people have a lot of very different ones — so my point about most (like 55%) of kitchen still stands, right?

throwaway285524• 4 years ago

That, in turn, sounds weird to me. I could easily afford not to cook, it doesn't have anything to do with money, and I definitely don't consider it a hobby either - I don't enjoy it particularly.

Making my own food allows me to eat exactly what I want, in the right amount, made from the right ingredients. It's also more healthy. If you want to get all abstract about it, it's also about keeping a culture of food alive that I grew up with.

I suspect your experience as a digital nomand isn't quite representative, and it probably also has a lot to do with where you're from originally...

Liquid_Fire• 4 years ago

As a digital nomad you are probably able to live in places with a lower cost of living, but usually high salaries are in places with a high cost of living as well. This makes the price of eating out quite higher as well, often much more so than the cost of groceries.

Additionally, just because you can afford to eat out every meal doesn't mean you wouldn't rather do other things with your money (e.g. save to retire early).

Of course, if your income is high enough you might not even care about that, but I don't think this website covers such incomes (the highest kitchens I can see are $10k/month) and at that level you can probably pay someone to cook for you.

lilyh• 4 years ago

I used to barely cook when I lived small with a shitty kitchen (because it was so annoying and depressing), once I got a good job and could afford a nice place with a big kitchen, it suddenly become a lot more enjoyable to make my own food.

nemo44x• 4 years ago

The kitchen is considered the “heart of the home”, in the USA at least. The trend has been towards larger and more luxurious kitchens as they’re seen as the most used communal room and the centerpiece for entertaining.

So even if you don’t cook often you’ll see 48” ranges, counter depth fridges, and custom cabinetry and islands in high end homes.

It’s not uncommon for a modern luxury kitchen to cost more than most homes across the country.

High end and custom is expensive.

lelandfe3• 4 years ago

American here. I happen to know some extreme high net worth individuals (incl. 1 billionaire). Anecdata, I haven’t personally seen a trend towards not cooking associated with wealth.

None of them have places that outright lack kitchens, that would be strange. Few of them shop for groceries though - the majority use eg Amazon Fresh

anamax• 4 years ago

You're ignoring time.

Eating out has overhead that can easily exceed that of cooking, plus it's one block of time.

Eating out is especially time-wasting for snacks.

Food delivery reduces some of the overhead but introduces delay.

Plus, meals that you cook are more customizable. (Ghost and automated kitchens can solve that.)

ricardobayes• 4 years ago

Super interesting site

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

We need to downgrade our expectations some in the US for what a minimum, viable kitchen is. We tend to have oversized refrigerators compared to other countries and it's actually problematic because you can't keep milk cold enough to not spoil in a mostly empty, oversized fridge.

European kitchens for a family tend to have fridges like US hotels and dorm rooms. My understanding is most Japanese kitchens have no oven. They use a wok for most things.

We have ridiculous minimum standards and it actively gets in the way of providing basic, decent housing.

golergka4• 4 years ago

Trade-offs. Americans might have huge kitchens, but you don't usually have several cafes and restaurants that make great food 10-15 meters from your house entrance. Last place I lived at in Istanbul had it right on the first floor — I didn't even have to go out to "go out".

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

I'm all for adding those cafes, please and thank you.

stackbutterflow• 4 years ago

George H. W. Bush said "The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period."[0]

Where do Americans stand on this in 2022?

[0]https://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-n...

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

Oh, let's all go back to farms without electricity and horse and buggy, shall we? God forbid anything should change. Status quo is God.

FooBarBizBazz• 4 years ago

Lol, it's something to escape, not something to defend.

em5003• 4 years ago

I can't speak for all of Europe, but here in Amsterdam most people have a decent supermarket within walking (<15min) or cycling (<5min) distance, with plenty of unprocessed / raw ingredients (so not mini-markets that mostly sell sandwiches and microwave meals). So we tend to buy groceries often (daily or every other day) and in small portions, or even on a whim. We also don't own a car (yes we do have a child, and we know plenty of multi-child families without cars).

AFAICT, that's a lifestyle that's not available to most Americans. The flipside is of course that our houses are tiny by American standards.

In the few Asian cities I visited, there were also plenty of small cheap eateries in walking distance.

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

Not actually relevant.

Household size in the US has been trending down. We have more 1-3 person households and fewer large families.

When I got divorced and my family size shrank from 4 people to 3, we had to start putting extra stuff in the fridge so the milk wouldn't spoil.

daniel-cussen• 4 years ago

Doing everything right!

SyzygistSix• 4 years ago

Where I lived in Florida bodegas were common. It's definitely possible but high real estate prices don't help things. There is new retail space being built in the neighborhood where I live now and unfortunately it most certainly will not have cheap, whole foods available.

Gigachad3• 4 years ago

This is how I live in Australia. Got a supermarket on the same street so I’ll think about what I want from lunch, and go buy as close to the exact quantities of what I need to make it.

As a result I have close to no food wasted.

fatnoah• 4 years ago

I can't speak for all of Europe, but here in Amsterdam most people have a decent supermarket within walking (<15min) or cycling (<5min) distance

I lived in downtown Boston (USA) for a number of years in 4 different apartments. In each, the kitchen and fridge were fairly small, but I had a neighborhood market no further than a 2-3 minute walk away. A larger market was only 10-15 minutes away. As a result, I tended to eat far more fresh produce since I went to the market almost every day and had little space for storage.

Now that I'm in the suburbs, I have to drive to the store, but I generally don't more than one to two paper bags' worth of goods at a time. I still don't shop for a whole week, even though I have the space.

BlargMcLarg2• 4 years ago

You mostly adapt your fridge size to your way of living. Living off of sales, not having a decent convenience store nearby, making meals preemptively etc. all contribute to having a bigger fridge. This was still pretty bad here a few years ago when most shops in a 30km radius would be closed for multiple days on end for religious holidays, most big families would stock up big time.

That's the big thing Tokyo does best. If going to a convenience store is actually convenient, you don't need a large fridge at all, except for some niche situations most people don't care for anyway (cooking dishes which require a lot of space in the fridge/oven/freezer). I'd also wager eating staples kept in cupboards helps.

Can't speak for the remainder of the kitchen though. You don't need 4/8 stoves, an oven etc., but appliances don't take that much space when packed together. Even fridges don't really take that much more space.

throwaway220323• 4 years ago

Can you clarify what is meant here by minimum standards? I'm not American.

Over here in the UK no-one is stopping me from replacing my fridge with whatever fridge I want. It's weird for me to imagine that this could be otherwise. Like, it's just plugged in.

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

When I lived in Germany, rentals did not come with installed kitchens. As an American military wife, the US Army installed a fridge, sink, etc so I had a kitchen in one of my apartments.

My German relatives told stories about moving in and having no kitchen at first. That's inconceivable in most parts of the US.

Rentals here typically have a fridge that is property of the owner. And you aren't supposed to change it.

Edit: To be clear, they installed a kitchen of their choosing over time. (I also cleaned up typos.)

TheSpiceIsLife2• 4 years ago

I think Doreen just meant expectations.

There's a mildly amusing joke I don't quite recall right now about how everything in America is big. Serving sizes, houses, cars, political parties, theme parks, the people...

ume• 4 years ago

Most Japanese kitchens have a combined microwave and oven; the oven is consequently small compared to one in the US but works well enough. Woks are used for Chinese cooking and so aren't standard in a Japanese kitchen.

The fridges are small by comparison but, especially in cities, most people shop several times a week and so space isn't a problem.

DoreenMichele10• 4 years ago

Thank you.

Timpy• 4 years ago

Having a walkable city makes frequent grocery shopping much more comfortable. When I lived in Osaka there was a grocery store between my apartment and my nearest station. I only had to meal plan a day at a time, my food was always fresh, I never bought more than I needed and ended up tossing out food that I didn't get around to cooking. Every grocery store was walking distance to another grocery store, all the way from my place to the downtown Namba. Grocery shopping in the states is such a pain in the ass that I don't want to do it more than once a week, and my friends have trouble understanding why I hate car culture.

staz• 4 years ago

I'm not sure I understand the link between how full the fridge is and how well it can maintain the temperature of the milk?

In Europe, the milk is pasteurized at a higher temperature so it can keep for much longer

galoisgirl• 4 years ago

When you open a fridge full of stuff, it stays cold. When you open a fridge full of air, warm air enters.

jan_Inkepa• 4 years ago

Hah, the site also allows you to view teeth of the world by income category in the dropdown.

Avalaxy• 4 years ago

Where does this data come from? It doesn't look like people took these videos on purpose just for this site, as they show off kind of random (sometimes weird) things.

walterbell• 4 years ago

From https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/about

We want to show how people really live. It seemed natural to use photos as data so people can see for themselves what life looks like on different income levels. Dollar Street lets you visit many, many homes all over the world. Without travelling ... A team of photographers have documented over 264 homes in 50 countries so far, and the list is growing. In each home the photographer spends a day taking photos of up to 135 objects, like the family’s toothbrushes or favorite pair of shoes. All photos are then tagged (household function, family name and income) ... Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious or economic affiliations.

Video (2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4L130DkdOw

xtiansimon• 4 years ago

“… this household each adult can consume goods and services worth … US dollars each month. “

This is not an intuitive measure.

“We guesstimated this amount based on the assets the family owned and the incomes they reported.”

So owning a ridiculously expensive espresso machine is supposed to be a measure of the quality of food produced in a kitchen? No.

I have an electric steamer and rice cooker which I use a lot, and the quality of my food is excellent.

I understand a measure of nutrition is too far to be expect. But relevant to kitchen technology are CO2 production, energy efficiency. And these measures don’t need to be so granular. A multi-factor analysis on binary scale would be more informative and thoughtful than saying the dirt kitchen is $40/mo and Manhattan Penthouse kitchen is $7k/mo, and some other kitchen in India is 4K/mo?? Nonsense.

pif• 4 years ago

I can't understand how pictures are sorted: row by row, column by column...

lelandfe3• 4 years ago

I believe it is intentionally random sort, to expose you the visitor to a variety of cultures.

The metaphor in play is to “imagine the world as a street”

qolop• 4 years ago

I noticed that the dollar value on this page is not income, instead it's the dollar value of the consumption per adult in the family and adjusted for purchasing power parity.

That means that if there are two households in India and USA, and both have an "income" of 1000 USD, their consumption is similar. However it's very likely that the Indian households has significantly less actual income because stuff in India is cheaper. This also means that for goods that cost almost the same around the world e.g. an iPhone would be more affordable for American household.

wooque• 4 years ago

we use dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP)

into the trash it goes

alliao2• 4 years ago

I'd have liked to see Japan and it's all income levels... it's quite comical when you apply your local jurisdiction's regulations on these i bet one can make so much content on youtube filming reaction videos of your local regulator browsing this and either helpfully explain why/how or simply condemning; hilarious

oliwarner• 4 years ago

What's with these prices? China $10k/mo gets you a wok burner?

That much gets you a house for you and your butler in the UK. And it's expensive here.

moaf• 4 years ago

The title says that it's income per month, but on each kitchen page it says this is the amount of goods and services that the family can consume in a month.

nunez• 4 years ago

this is really cool, but it appears that NYC or SFBA has not yet entered the chat

prepare to be amazed by what little you can get for $10k/month in NYC or SFBA

Kitchens in the World, by Income per Month

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