Tags
Cambodia, demographics, Economics, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, politics, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
Image courtesy of The Economist here
In a previous post here I offered some comments on Southeast Asian poverty.
I recently came across the graphic above and thought I would add to my previous thoughts. Yes the data is over ten years old now and of limited relevance, even though (with the exception of Vietnam) the relative rankings may be similar.
What the graphic does provide is an interesting way of looking at Southeast Asia through the absolute number of poor people per nation. What if, through some sudden shift, the only people who existed in Southeast Asia were the poor?
In that view, Indonesia would remain the demographic giant of Southeast Asia, but by a smaller margin over the Philippines, with Vietnam not far behind. Laos and Cambodia would be much further behind, but Thailand, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia would disappear.
I suspect that Myanmar is absent from the list due to reporting inadequacies rather than the absence of sufficient poverty, but like so much in life that mystery remains for now.