After three decades in which rapid growth and reduced inequality were the hallmark of the East Asian economic miracle, inequality is becoming more widespread. One of the key features of this inequality is the growing gap in earning power between skilled and unskilled workers in increasingly sophisticated economies. The Bank's report claims that across Asia, the rate of increase of demand for skilled workers has outstripped the rate of supply, raising earnings differentials across many occupations. Despite the diversity of East Asian economies, there is a consistent picture of poverty throughout the region, mainly affecting rural and agricultural communities where people typically have little education and few prospects for alternative employment. East Asia Poverty Profile Rural areas have substantially higher incidence of poverty than urban areas-in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Lao PDR, poverty is twice as high in rural areas than urban, and almost 90 percent of the poor in Vietnam and Lao PDR live in rural areas.
Regional variations are also significant.
Education is a strong correlate of poverty throughout the region-lower education reduces earnings and increases vulnerability to poverty, thus reducing a household's ability to educate its children. Children living in poorer households have lower primary and substantially lower secondary enrollment rates. Agricultural households face a higher risk of poverty than any other occupational group, with the share of poor who live in agricultural households correspondingly high-60 percent in the Philippines, and 76 percent in Thailand and Vietnam. Ethnicity can be linked to poverty in certain countries in the region, such as Vietnam, where poverty is substantially higher among some ethnic minorities. There has been a marked but slow decline in poverty since India became independent in 1947.