Poverty and landlessness in rural Asia c.1

The focus of this work is rural poverty as manifested in seven Asian countries on which eleven research studies prepared by economists from, or familiar with conditions in, the areas concerned, are presented. The results are analysed, and the main emerging trends indicated, in the opening chapter.
While the situation varies according to the region or country, the conclusions are generally sombre, pointing to a worsening distribution of income and a declining real income of the rural poor in several countries, coupled with an increase in the proportion of the population below the poverty line Concomitantly the real wages of agricultural labourers have largely remained constant or show a downward trend, Inequality in land ownership is shown to in rural income deficiencies and neon a major facts land reform nor the green revolution has as yet made a decisive impact on the incomes of the smallest landowners or labourers. A wider distribution of productive assets, notably land, is suggested to be an essential any development strategy designed to Improve the living standards of the very poor and to reduce inequality The Chinese experience, in land reform and income redistribution is the subject of the final chapter