There has been marked progress on reducing extreme poverty over the past two decades: the share of people living in extreme poverty – with incomes below PPP 2.15 per day, has fallen from over 21% in 2000 to roughly 2.6% in 2022 across the Asia/Pacific region on average (Figure 5.1). Much of the observed reduction was driven by remarkable progress in China, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where poverty rates decreased by 30 percentage points or more. Despite progress, extreme poverty is highest in India and Timor-Leste, where more than 10% of the population must get by with less than PPP 2.15 per day. Among low- and middle‑income countries, poverty levels are lowest in Bhutan, China, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand and Tonga, where less than 0.5% of the population experiences extreme poverty.
Poverty generally declined more rapidly in countries with the strongest real GDP growth (Figure 5.2). The pace of both economic growth and poverty reduction was fastest in China over the 2000‑22 period. In contrast, in Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia, India and Lao PDR, the share of the population under the poverty line did not decline as much as one would have expected given the pace of economic growth.
Income inequality is slightly higher in the Asia/Pacific region compared to the OECD (Figure 5.3). In 2021, income inequalities were widest in Malaysia and the Philippines with Gini coefficients on income inequality at above 0.40, compared to the lowest at 0.28 in Tonga and Armenia. Over the past decade, income inequality across the Asia/Pacific economies decreased from 0.35 in 2010 to 0.33 in 2021, but remained above the OECD average (0.32) in 2021. Some Asia/Pacific countries like China, Fiji, Georgia and the Maldives experienced a reduction in income inequality over the past ten years, while increases in income inequality were recorded in Lao PDR, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan.
