Description
Book SynopsisForeword by Timothy M. (Tim) Smeeding, Founding Director of the Luxembourg Income Study and Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics, University of Wisconsin, US
This insightful book addresses the urgent need for robust evidence on recent trends and factors contributing to poverty and inequality in East Asia.
Using data from international projects, including the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), as well as national data, expert contributors monitor trends in poverty and inequality within and between countries, while also identifying the factors that are driving them, both nationally and regionally. Chapters explore labour market and demographic developments, changes in family and household structures and roles, and changes in policy settings. Investigating how these factors act both independently and interactively to generate nationally and regionally unique features of poverty and inequality, the book highlights how inequality has been rising on a global scale and suggests how welfare states should respond.
Poverty and Inequality in East Asia will be a valuable resource for researchers and students studying Asian development and social policy, comparative social policy, labour policy and family policy. Drawing on state of the art data to compare experiences in selected Western economies against those in East Asia, the book will also be a useful resource for policy makers.
Trade Review‘This volume offers both insight into how East Asian societies are changing, while issuing a warning on how and why their welfare states need further change to adapt to these new realities as the characteristics of inequality and differential prosperity found in rich western nations have come to roost in East Asia.’ -- From the foreword by Timothy Smeeding
‘In this engaging volume, leading experts utilize high-quality datasets to assess social policies in contemporary East Asia. These excellent and nuanced studies analyze interactions among multiple changes currently underway – including policy reforms, economic shifts, and demographic upheavals. This illuminating collection broadens and deepens cross-national scholarship on poverty and inequality.’ -- Janet C. Gornick, City University of New York, Graduate Center, US
Table of ContentsContents: Foreword xiv Acknowledgements xvi 1 Introduction to Poverty and Inequality in East Asia: Work, Family and Policy 1 Peter Saunders and Inhoe Ku 2 Working poverty and anti-poverty policy in four East Asian societies 14 Aya Abe, Yu-Ling Chang, Ji Young Kang, Jennifer Romich, and Julia Shu-Huah Wang 3 Income packaging and social safety nets for low-income families with children in East Asia 38 Julia Shu-Huah Wang, Irene Y.H. Ng, Inhoe Ku, Ji Young Kang, Xi Zhao, Chenhong Peng, Aya Abe, and Yinan Yao 4 Childlessness and social support in four East Asian societies 63 Aya Abe 5 Married women’s employment and the motherhood employment penalty by couple’s educational attainment across ten countries 86 Ji Young Kang, Wonjin Lee, Sunyu Ham, and Julia Shu-Huah Wang 6 Adult, child and sibling deprivation in Hong Kong 109 Peter Saunders, Hung Wong, and Vera Mun Yu Tang 7 Explaining the child poverty outcomes of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan 129 Bruce Bradbury, Aya Abe, Markus Jäntti, Inhoe Ku, and Julia Shu-Huah Wang 8 Poverty among young adults in East Asia – a comparative study 153 Geumsun Byun, Mihee Park, and Hyejin Ko 9 Old-age poverty in rural China in the new century 176 Shi Li and Mengbing Zhu 10 What makes old-age poverty in East Asian societies so high? 196 Inhoe Ku, Wonjin Lee, Aya Abe, Mengbing Zhu, Shi Li, Chungyang Yeh, and Dongjin Kim 11 Conclusion 221 Inhoe Ku and Peter Saunders Index 231
