Figure Int.-2-31 Changes in Gini Coefficient in Japan Due to Income Redistribution

Note: Benefits in kind prior to 1999 were medical services only, while benefits in kind since 2002 include medical services, nursing care and childcare. Source: Materials from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

poverty increased by 100 million between 1990 and 2005, with the poverty rate high at over 50%.

The United Nations estimates that as many as one billion people will remain in dire poverty even in 2015.

In advanced countries, the relative poverty, i.e. the income disparity, is an issue. The Gini coefficient is one of commonly used measures of inequality in income (the coefficient is shown in figures between 1 and 0, and the closer the figure is to 1, the larger the income disparity). The Gini coefficient has risen between the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s in 19 out of 24 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), indicating the increasing degree of inequality in many countries (Table Int.-2-4, Figure Int.-2-30).

Regarding the Gini coefficient in Japan, while initial income has been risen year by year, post-redistribution income has stayed flat since the 1999 survey (Figure Int.-2-31). According to a survey on the redistribution of income conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2005, the Gini coefficient in 2005 stood at around 0.53 for initial income and around 0.39 for post-redistribution income. In recent years, the degree of improvement in the Gini coefficient by the redistribution of taxes and social security has grown larger by each survey, reaching a record 26.4% in the 2005 survey.

When the disparity in terms of income is widening, there is a view that the “quality of life” cannot necessarily be measured adequately by economic indicators such as income alone. According to the survey results released by the EU in 2008, while 84% of the survey respondents say that economic factors have a big impact on the “quality of life,” as many as

Question: In your opinion, to what extent do the following factors influence your "quality of life"?

Note: The reply options to this question are "Very much," "Quite a lot," "Not much," "Not at all" and "DK (Don't know)." The numbers shown in the above figure are the sum of the percentages of responses "Very much" and "Quite a lot."

Source: European Commission, "Special Eurobarometer 295"

80% also say that environmental conditions affect the “quality of life” (Figure Int.-2-32). The EU survey results also show that over two-thirds of the respondents believe that social and environmental indicators should be equally used, along with economic indicators, to measure the degree of development of society. The European Commission reports that a similar survey carried out in 2007 by a private research firm in 10 countries on five continents found that an even larger ratio of 75% of respondents supported this idea.

## Conclusion

In this section, we have examined several economic and social developments deeply related to environmental problems, ranging from population trends to the situation of poverty and income disparity.

Key points that have emerged from a variety of data are that consumption of resources and burdens on the environment have been increasing in tandem with population growth and expanding economic activities. Given global socioeconomic trends and the finite nature of natural resources, it is extremely difficult to sustain