living below their country’s minimum wage
of Asia-Pacific youth in the labor force are unemployed in 2024
people with disabilities
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Welcome to the End Austerity in Asia Pacific Virtual Data Exhibit!
Now, everyone can access the data exhibit in a virtual format. This page contains data and numbers that represent the impacts, history, and alternatives to austerity.
You can browse the entire exhibit by scrolling down or by jumping to specific sections through clicking the title beside each section. If you’re also interested in holding an in-person exhibition, you can go to the official campaign website to register, access, and print the files.
We have also prepared a new interactive generator at the end for you to try. Learn more below!
The effects of austerity reverberate the most among marginalized sectors of society.
To expand the shrinking gap between a country’s revenue and debt, governments are imposing a reduction on public spending, which affects basic social services such as education, health, pension, and water. Meanwhile, debt distress in Asia Pacific continues to exacerbate existing inequalities, plunge fragile economies, and derail overall development, especially in countries which have shown a continuous rise in government debt since 2008.
International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have leveraged fiscal power to impose their interests as well as donor countries’ across development projects in the region. These aid-dependent structures inflicted on developing countries to finance development place them in a vulnerable spot, exposing Asia Pacific peoples to further marginalization through increasing taxes, cutting back social services, and poverty-inducing inflation. The perpetual imposition of aid and debt conditionalities on Southern economies influences national policies at the expense of people’s rights and sovereignty.
This data exhibit aims to raise people’s awareness on the impacts of austerity measures and mobilize them by resisting donor countries’ and international financial institutions’ interests that enable corporate control of development and of national policies, as well as pushing for alternatives.
What is austerity?
Austerity is a macroeconomic policy aimed at reducing budget deficits by managing debts and controlling public spending, often implemented by governments during economic downturns or debt crises.
Austerity and debt
The mounting debt of countries from IFIs gives the latter the upper hand in imposing conditionalities and austerity measures on the former. Governments are forced, yet sometimes complicit, in slashing public spending, which affects subsidies and benefits for the people, to adhere to the agreement with IFIs. As a result, marginalized sectors of society are left with no choice but to endure increases in taxes and a lack of social services.
What are the austerity measures?
To reduce expenditures
To increase revenues
To reduce expenditures
Elimination or reduction of subsidies, on fuel and energy, electricity, food products and agriculture inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides;
Wage bill cuts or caps on salaries of education, health and other public sector workers;
Rationalizing safety nets and welfare benefits via revising eligibility and further targeting to the poorest;
Pension reforms such as raising contribution rates, delaying the retirement age and lowering benefits;
Labor market reforms, specifically, restraining the minimum wage, limiting salary adjustments to cost of living standards, decentralizing collective bargaining, relaxing dismissal regulations and enabling temporary/ atypical contracts to hire workers; and
Healthcare reforms, in the form of raising fees for patients and introducing cost-cutting measures in public healthcare centers.
To increase revenues
The introduction of new, or the expansion of already existing, consumption taxes on goods and services, like value added taxes;
The privatization of government assets and services; and
The strengthening public-private partnerships.
Asia Pacific in Numbers
of world’s elderly population are in Asia Pacific
2 out of 3 out-of-school children in Asia Pacific are from South Asia
of all maternal deaths in Asia Pacific occured in low and lower middle income countries in 2020
Only 43% of Asia’s citizens have access to social protection benefits
Austerity in Asia Pacific:
A Timeline
1984
SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Philippines increased its taxes by as much as 8-10% to satisfy IMF conditionalities for a $650 million loan which propelled workers in the labor market to demand a higher wage. In the same year, the national government reduced country’s budget by 5%.
1992
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
The conditionalities from a 1988 IMF loan propelled the Algeria Food Crisis as the country reduced their food subsidies to 2.3% (subsidy-to-GDP ratio) from 5% ratio a year before.
2000
PACIFIC
Australia increased its defense spending by 47% to strengthen its alliance with the United States and its participation in international military operations despite facing budget constraints.
2017
EAST ASIA
In Japan, 2 out of 3 low-income households relying on public assistance suffered from the 5% reduction in public benefits
2020
SOUTH ASIA
Sri Lanka faced foreign debt crisis during and post-pandemic. Increase in taxes, elimination of subsidies, and cutting public spending caused food insecurity where women were primarily affected.
1 out of 3 households were food insecure
Almost 50% of children aged under 5 faced malnutrition
202+
THE FUTURE
7B
people or 85% of global population may still live under the grip of austerityTHE FUTURE
7B
people or 85% of global population may still live under the grip of austerity
Asia Pacific Debt
The region continues to succumb to insurmountable debt due to conflicts, wars, economic instability, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic. IFIs remain culprits to the increasing public debt of Asia Pacific. Prevalent financing efforts intended to aid countries through loans plunge them further into a more distressing state. This visualization provides an overview of the Asia-Pacific’s debt situation. It maps out the debt-to-GDP ratio, a measurement of a country’s vulnerability to economic and political shocks as well as its ability to pay its debt, with a threshold around 60–70%.
Debt-to-GDP Ratio
Asia-Pacific countries* are considered Fragile and Conflict Affected Situations (FCAS)
*Although the World Bank list only included West Bank and Gaza as a territory, the network recognizes the Palestine as a legitimate state.
The enduring effects of pandemic drove Asia Pacific’s average government debt level to 49.5% of GDP in 2021.
31 Asia-Pacific countries eligible for International Monetary Fund’s Poverty and Growth Trust are classified based on risk of debt distress
Austerity Impacts
The bar graph represents the prevalence of each austerity measure in Asia Pacific countries. It attempts to show which of the austerity measures are the most prevalent through data from reports and similar campaigns. The X axis represents the number of countries implementing (or planning to implement) a particular austerity policy, while the Y axis lists down the measures.
Women
Agriculture
Labor
Women
Monopoly capitalism drives austerity as economic reform, exploiting women’s unpaid work to boost profits. It is “gendered,” making women and girls involuntary “shock absorbers” of fiscal consolidation due to power relations affecting resource distribution and care labor.
A Vulnerable Population Within A Vulnerable Population
Older women:
Social security and pension cuts
Younger women and mothers:
Cuts in subsidies for education, childcare, basic services, housing, transportation, and food can push girls and single mothers out of school.
Women and girls experience those impacts differently throughout their lives, hence the importance of a life-cycle approach in addressing those impacts.
single mothers
women who live in poverty
women with disabilities
women refugees
migrant women
victims of sexual assault
women living in rural areas
women belonging to ethnic groups
young women
lesbian and intersex women
religious or linguistic minorities
WOMEN AND AUSTERITY IN NUMBERS
How Austerity Affects Women Disproportionately?
28 Countries
in Asia Pacific planned to cut their social protection budget for maternity and childcare coverage in 2023
72 Countries
in Asia Pacific have below 50% maternity care coverage
At least
26 Countries
in Asia Pacific are dealing with pension reforms
USD 11 Trillion
This is women’s contribution through unpaid care labor that is not included in GDP calculations
92%
of all maternal deaths in Asia Pacific occurred in low and lower middle income countries in 2020
12%
increase in poverty rate as women faced double the care work at 95% food inflation peak
13M
fewer women were employed compared to 2019, while men’s employment had fully recovered.
4.1 TIMES
women in Asia and the Pacific do 4.1 times more unpaid care work than men.
Agriculture
The introduction of new, or the expansion of already existing, consumption taxes on goods and services, like value added taxes;
The privatization of government assets and services; and
The strengthening public-private partnerships.
Labor
Tab Content
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, has been notorious for imposing austerity policies, which is just another ploy to sustain neoliberal objectives that prioritize free markets over tackling and addressing major socio-economic crises plaguing the region.
ASIA PACIFIC COUNTRIES
out of 38 countries worldwide received combined 15-billion approved loans from IMF (March 2020 – March 2023) with vast majority of recipient countries subjected to austerity policies
“For every $1 the IMF encouraged a set of poor countries to spend on public goods, it has told them to cut four times more through austerity measure.” -Oxfam International
IMF CURSE ON SRI LANKA
Half of the Sri Lankan population suffered from multiple vulnerabilities due to IMF-imposed austerity measures thought their government
food inflation peak
poverty rate (doubled from 13.1%)
worth of extended arrangement over 48 months
Interest rates DOUBLED Subsidies ELIMINATED Public spending SLASHED
Asian Development Bank
The data shows the bank’s role in fiscal management and the policies of their developing member countries. In the bank’s project dataset from 2005-2023, over 50 projects worth USD 3 billion were found dealing with fiscal reforms, fiscal management, fiscal governance, debt management, etc.
SOVEREIGN PROJECTS
under public expenditure and fiscal management subsector from 2005-2023
TOTAL PROJECT COST
in Asia Pacific under finance sector with over 1,235 projects
The end austerity Spending generator
Budget and Allocation
Asia-Pacific governments overtly choose to cut public spending, including those on social services and subsidies that are crucial to people’s development, in order to contain deficits between a country’s debt and income. The visualization below shows alternative revenue sources—domestic resource mobilization, wealth tax, and defense budget—to address issues of intensifying poverty, a lack of education, and inaccessible healthcare.
Join us in ending austerity in Asia Pacific today!
Got questions?
Send your inquiry to endausterity@realityofaid.org.