There has been marked progress on reducing extreme poverty over last decade: the share of people living in extreme poverty – with incomes below USD 1.90 per day, has almost halved to 6.0% across the Asia/Pacific region (). Much of the observed reduction was driven by remarkable progress in China, Indonesia, India, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam, where poverty rates decreased by more than 16 percentage points.

Income inequality indicates how material resources are distributed across society. Some consider high levels of income inequality to be morally undesirable. Others believe that income inequality is bad because it causes conflict, limits co-operation or creates psychological and ultimately physical stresses. Often the policy concern is more for the direction of changes in inequality, rather than for its level.

The proportion of people covered by a pension scheme and the extent to which pensions replace previous earnings are two important indicators of the role pension systems play in society. There is huge variation of pension coverage in the Asia/Pacific region (): in Japan and Australia the pension system covers over 90% of the labour force while coverage is very low in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Lao PDR. One in three persons in the labour force and one in four people of working age are covered by mandatory pension schemes in the Asia/Pacific region, while this is 83% and 63%, respectively in OECD countries. There is a risk that the elderly in the Asia/Pacific region will have to rely more on family support to meet their needs than their peers in OECD countries.

In 2015, public social expenditure-to-GDP ratios varied considerably across the Asia/Pacific region, but were generally well below the OECD average (). Average social protection spending in the Asia/Pacific region was about one-third of the average in the OECD as a whole. Public social spending in Japan, New Zealand and Australia is close to 20% of GDP, and around 10% of GDP in Korea, and Mongolia. By contrast, public spending on social protection is around 2% of GDP in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar.

Making donations to charities, doing voluntary work or helping strangers are all examples of showing compassion to others, contribute to the functioning of society and/or supporting the disadvantaged. Income levels can to some extent explain observed differences between countries, but different traditions regarding the supportive role of the state, the community and the family are also important.