Misery Beneath the Miracle challenges prevailing views of the East Asian economic miracle. Existing scholarship has overlooked the severity, persistence, and harmful consequences of the social welfare crises affecting the region. Arvid J. Lukauskas and Yumiko Shimabukuro fill this gap and put a major asterisk on its economic record.

Combining big-picture analysis, abundant data, a dynamic interdisciplinary framework, and powerful human stories, they shed light on the social ills that governments have failed to address adequately, including low wages, child abuse, elderly poverty and substandard housing. One of the major forces behind the multidimensional welfare crises is the region's productivist welfare strategy, which prioritizes economic growth while abandoning a robust social safety net, leaving the most vulnerable segments of society largely unprotected.

Misery Beneath the Miracle brings East Asia into debates that are currently embroiling the United States and other advanced industrialized countries over the dangers of seeking growth at all costs.

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Falling Short

Arvid J. Lukauskas is the Executive Director of the Program in Economic Policy Management at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Yumiko Shimabukuro is Director of the Urban and Social Policy Concentration for the Executive MPA at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.