Povertyin East Asia

What is poverty?

• a scarcity of a certain amount of material possessions or money; for example: a lack of basic human needs like:

• Food

• Water

• Proper sanitation

• Clothing

• Shelter

• Health care

• Education

China

• After reforms in the ‘70s, China underwent massive economic growth

• Overall, poverty has decreased in the last few decades

• However, much of that decrease is in urban areas and not in rural areas

• People who live in cities in China make three times higher incomes than those in rural areas

• The most vulnerable groups in rural parts of China are women, children, and the elderly, as well as ethnic minorities who live in remote mountainous areas.

Top: rural school in China; Bottom:

school in Beijing

Reasons for Poverty in China

• Most of those who live outside of cities in China work in agriculture, which does not make much money• Those in rural areas also are more likely to face extreme

weather conditions, like floods and droughts

• Reliance on traditional farming techniques leaves these populations vulnerable

• Basic infrastructure (food, water, sanitation, transportation) is lacking in rural areas of China

• Lacking of basic skills and education leaves rural citizens unprepared in life

South Korea

• Poverty in South Korea is infrequent

• Those who are poor are more often the elderly • In traditional Korean culture, the elderly relied on their families to take care

of them as they age

• This practice is changing as Korean families spend money on other things

• The elderly in South Korea are therefore made to work in jobs well into their 70s

Japan

• People generally assume that all Japanese are well-off and prosperous, when actually, the percentage of those in poverty has recently increased to 15% (same as the US).

• The Japanese media rarely reports anything about poverty in Japan, which means that no one really does anything about it.

• If a Japanese person is experiencing poverty, it is very taboo to talk about it

Satomi Sato works mornings

making boxed lunches. She said

her family's difficulties began in

the late 1990s, when the

economic slide worsened on the

island of Hokkaido, as it did

across much of rural Japan.