​Chaired by Andy Norton, ODI’s Director of Research, this event discussed the potentially momentous implications of ODI’s new findings – that rural wages across Asia are rising, and show no sign of stopping.

Steve Wiggins, ODI Research Fellow and author of the report, described how falling fertility rates and the growth of manufacturing are driving up agricultural wages across much of Asia – and shrinking the pay gap between men and women. Not only could this signal the end of extreme poverty in Asia, but the implications for Africa and Latin America could be huge.

Steve argued that as food costs rise in Asia, there will increasingly be opportunities for low-cost producers in other parts of the developing world to export foodstuffs to Asia. Meanwhile Africa’s ‘youth bulge’ could leave it well-placed to take Asia’s place as a new supplier of cheap labour.

Duncan Green, Strategic Advisor at Oxfam GB, warned that we should not underplay the significance of the report’s findings – potentially the end of mass poverty in Asia – before highlighting some of the other positive implications of these demographic changes, such as greater women’s empowerment. He asked which African countries might end up benefiting from this phenomenon.

A wide-ranging discussion followed, covering the different policy implications for rural and urban poor; the implications for land use in Africa and Asia; the fate of regions not seeing these gains in productivity and wages; and the potential impacts on women in sub-Saharan Africa if large numbers of manufacturing jobs – in some industries done largely by women – do come to Africa.

 

ODI