SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

FIGURE 2.8:
Growth in labour productivity has been rapid
Source: Based on ILO 2015a.
FIGURE 2.9:
Many jobs remain in agriculture, while the
share in manufacturing lags
low wages in the region (Figure 2.10). Twenty-four
percent of working people in South Asia
earn less than $1.25 a day, while 61 percent earn
less than $2 a day—meaning they are trapped
in dire poverty even as they are working. In
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan,
more than 80 percent of working people
earn less than $4 daily. The size of the middle
class, or workers earning from $4 to $13 a day,
is growing in Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka,
but is still small in other parts of South Asia.
A growing middle class adds an extra boost to
growth and human development.
In South-east Asia and the Pacific, 11 percent
of working people take home less than $1.25
a day, while another 32 percent earn less than
$2 a day. Even where most people live above
the poverty line, many workers hover near it,
earning between $2 and $4 a day. Fifty percent
of workers fall into this category in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic,
Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea,
Timor-Leste and Viet Nam. They are highly
vulnerable to shocks and could easily fall back
into poverty.
East Asia is better off, mainly due to progress
in China in creating better-paid jobs. The
middle class there has grown rapidly; more than
40 percent of working people now earn between
FIGURE 2.10:
Low-skilled jobs lead to low wages
and poverty traps
Source: Based on ILO 2015a.
tration, real estate, transport, and wholesale and
retail trade. Modern service sectors, including
finance, business consulting, IT and research,
have yet to take off, although the IT sector in
India has expanded rapidly, while the Philippines
attracts a huge number of outsourced telecommunication
services. Except for in China; Hong
Kong, China (SAR); the Republic of Korea
and Singapore, the productivity of the service
sector is around 30 percent, lower than that of
OECD countries. 6
The prevalence of low-skilled jobs explains
Source: Based on ILO 2015a.
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