Abstract
To the social scientist, perhaps the most eye-catching accomplishments of the East and Southeast Asian countries over the past few decades are an enviable record of economic growth, and the changes that this has wrought. Not least worthy of note is the fact that the great majority of the inhabitants of the countries concerned have been able to share the fruits of growth. "[R]apid growth and reduced inequality". The World Bank (1993: 27) noted about a decade ago, "are the defining characteristics of what has come to be
known as the East Asian economic miracle". In most countries not only have the poor as a share in the total population diminished, the absolute number of poor has declined as well ( e.g. Ahuja et al.1997).