ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between economic inequality and social and economic resilience in East Asia. First, selected basic theoretical aspects of economic inequalities and social and economic resilience are briefly discussed. This is followed by an analysis of economic inequality (in terms of income inequality and wealth inequality) and poverty and deprivation in East Asia, as well as of the relationship between income inequality and social and economic resilience across East Asian countries in the face of the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2019 Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis has shown that East Asia was much more strongly affected by the negative consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic than by the 2008 global financial crisis, which had a much stronger negative impact on the developed countries than on the developing countries of East Asia. In turn, the level of social and economic resilience to these external shocks, in the context of existing economic inequalities, was highly varied and ambiguous, with the main dividing line being, in fact, the level of development of the country in question.
