More than 4 billion people across the world are believed to wear some type of glasses, with reading glasses chief among those. Glasses help people see and read, of course, but a new study has found that reading glasses might have an economic impact too, especially in more impoverished countries.Â
The study, published April 3 by Queen's University Belfast in conjunction with the nonprofit groups VisionSpring and BRAC, set up an experiment in 56 Bangladeshi villages, giving half the selected villagers glasses while not giving glasses to the other half. The principal takeaway was that "income grew by 33% for those with glasses — from a median monthly income of $35 to $47," NPR said.
After Jasmin Atker, a farmer who lives in Manikganj, Bangladesh, was fitted with glasses, her "improved vision enabled her to set up a vegetable patch," said NPR. This has helped Atker's monthly income rise from 9,000 to 10,000 Bangladeshi taka to 15,000 to 17,000 taka, or nearly $150. "Before, when I tried to cut vegetables ... I couldn't see properly," Atker told NPR. But since receiving glasses, the "time that I take for each task has reduced significantly."
This study is the "first time we can really say that something that will improve [someone's] quality of life from a visual standpoint will also help with poverty alleviation, which is an enormous finding," Dr. David Friedman, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, said to NPR. | 
