329 / 138
Decomposing Youth Poverty in 22 Countries
329
contexts. Although the rates of youth poverty in East Asian
countries are lower than in most Western countries, this
observation may obscure the economic struggles of young East
Asian adults. Our findings suggest that whereas youth
unemployment has been increasing and the wage gaps between
young and prime-age adults have been growing wider, East Asian
families assume responsibility for the institutional gap for personal
economic security from late teens through early adulthood.
Furthermore, given limited social provisions for young and old,
particularly in Taiwan and South Korea, prime-age Taiwanese and
Korean adults may be overwhelmed by the responsibility of
supporting both their children and their elderly parents. As long as
the support for young and old relies on the family, youth
unemployment and other youth-related issues may remain
“invisible” to East Asian governments
(Inaba, 2011).
In addition, prolonged residential and economic dependency
may delay young adults’ acquisition of autonomy and limit their
decisions about their family formation and career establishment,
both of which may in turn hinder the development of the society
(Allyón, 2009). Previous studies have shown that extended
coresidence with parents is associated with young adults’ longer
spells of poverty in Southern European countries (Allyón, 2009).
In contrast, although young Scandinavian adults are at high risk of
poverty after leaving the parental home, they exit poverty quickly
with more comprehensive social provisions (Allyón, 2015). In
addition, extremely low fertility has been observed in countries
where intergenerational living arrangements prevail (e.g. East Asia
and Southern Europe). For example, the total fertility rate plunged
to 0.9 for Taiwan in 2010 and 1.2 for South Korea and 1.3 for
Spain in 2015 (Ministry of the Interior, 2015; World Bank, 2015).
These findings suggest that extended residential and economic
dependence of young adults affect not only the economic
well-being of young adults and their family members, but also the
progression of individuals’ life course and the development of the