Wealth Gap Steadily Grown in Taiwan Over Last 30 Years

New government data show a sharp increase in wealth inequality in Taiwan over the past three decades.

Transcript

00:00Her 55-year-old single mother, Ms. Ju, the fact that average household wealth in Taiwan

00:05is around half a million U.S. dollars doesn't mean much.

00:09She's among the 71 percent of families that fall below this average.

00:13Some days her sweet potato stand struggles to pull in even 30 U.S. dollars.

00:26Not all those who fall below the average are in quite such tough circumstances.

00:31But wealth inequality is a fact of Taiwanese society.

00:34And new government data shows it's grown greatly in recent decades.

00:38One way to see this is to compare the earnings gap between the richest 20 percent and the

00:43poorest 20 percent of society.

00:45In 1991, the richest made around 17 times more than the poorest.

00:49But by the end of 2021, that was up to 67 times more.

00:54Researchers say a person's occupation and economic trends factor into who rises in

00:59the wealth ratings and who falls behind.

01:04During the pandemic in 2021, remote work opportunities boosted exports of electronic components and

01:09the manufacture and export of ICT equipment.

01:12But the service and other traditional industries focused on domestic demand performed very

01:16poorly.

01:17This is reflected in the growing income gap between workers in different sectors.

01:22There are countries where the situation's worse.

01:25One way to see this is to look at what's known as the Gini coefficient, a number between

01:29zero and one used to show how unequal a society is.

01:33Zero means perfect equality, while one means total inequality.

01:37With a 2021 score of .606, Taiwan is more equal than the UK, France, or Japan, to name

01:44a few examples.

01:45But back in 1991, Taiwan had a much lower score of .47.

01:51Taiwan's net and gross national wealth has risen even through the end of the pandemic.

01:55But there are still plenty of people in Taiwan, people like sweet potato vendor Ms. Ju, who

02:00aren't benefiting from the country's overall prosperity.

02:03Eason Chen and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.