Infographic on social & economic inequality in ASEAN

Social and economic inequality are a “hot topic” for the media as well as for researchers. The ATM team published a series of data posters on inequality in ASEAN in 2011 with a special emphasis on access to basic services such as health, water & sanitation but also financial services. Our friends from Trendnovation Southeast recently published an infographic on inequality in ASEAN with a slightly focus on three areas:

• Social security and health expenditure,
• Politics & human rights, and
• Economic situation

While not everyone would agree that the indicators are a good choice to measure inequality in these areas, they have chosen very interesting indicators to illustrate the rising inequality in the region. Intra-country inequality is a definitely an important issue, but this infographic very clearly illustrates inter-country differences. Not a single ASEAN country comes out consistently on top – not even Singapore (the usual suspect for No.1 in ASEAN rankings).

Singapore does not so well on government expenditure on health, human rights, and the GINI coefficient on income inequality. At the same time it takes top spot for control of corruption, contribution to social security (really?) and GNI per capita ($). Thailand scores low on political stability, human rights issues and social security, but fares quite high in government health expenditure and control of corruption.

The two indicators that stand out across the board are the GINI coefficient and the human rights measure. Clearly two areas where ASEAN countries could make significant improvements in the future.

Thanks to Trendnovation Southeast for this informative infographic!