The Communist Party took over China in 1949.
- In 1981 90% of Chinese lived in ‘extreme poverty’.
- In 1976 Mao Tse Tung died.
- In 1978 Deng Xiaoping took power and started major economic reforms.
- In the 1990s China’s economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty.
- In 2010 10% of Chinese lived in ‘extreme poverty’.
This has changed as China has rapidly transitioned between socialism to a capitalist/market driven economy, just about entirely in the era of ‘neoliberalism’.
10% of 1.3 billion people is still a lot of people in extreme poverty, over 100 million people, but it is a huge improvement in living standards for Chinese people overall.
Source – Share of the population living in extreme poverty, 1981 to 2010
Extreme poverty is defined as living with an income of less than 1.90$ per day. All incomes are adjusted for inflation over time and for price differences between countries and expressed in 2011 PPP international dollars.
Change has been less dramatic elsewhere but the move out of poverty has also been significant.
- India – from 53% to 21%
- Bangladesh from 70% to 44%
- Uganda from 95% (1988) to 33%
- Vietnam from 49% (1992) to 4%
