21 November 2025
NTS Bulletin November 2025
Economic Security and Development in ASEAN — An SDG Goal Review
By Tamara Nair
At almost 60 years since its founding, ASEAN’s ‘success story’ as a regional multilateral organisation is often cited as one of tremendous economic development. It has transformed from a modest combined economy of US$24 billion in 1967 to the world’s fourth-largest economic bloc in 2024, with an estimated GDP of US$4.13 trillion. By demonstrating a consistent upward trajectory of GDP and GDP per capita from 2020 to 2023, it has also reflected economic resilience post-COVID-19.
Yet, even beyond the indicators of GDP and GDP per capita, variables like job stability and income disparity give a more comprehensive picture of economic security and development in the region. It is beneficial to contextualise ASEAN’s economic feats within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. As the 2030 deadline for achieving the SDGs approaches, is ASEAN’s economic performance on the path to inclusive and sustainable development?
Goal 8 and a Regional Progress Report
ASEAN’s economic growth has been largely consistent with the objectives of Goal 8, which focuses on promoting entrepreneurship, creating quality jobs, and ‘decent work’ opportunities for everyone. Such work entails fair income, workplace security, social protection for families, and better prospects for personal development. According to the IMF, Southeast Asia’s real GDP growth rate is at 4.3 per cent in 2025, well above the average global growth rate of 3.2 per cent. However, despite strong macroeconomic performance, the region sees an uneven progress towards inclusive and ‘decent’ work opportunities.
According to ASEAN’s 2025 SDG Progress Report, the region recorded only a minor reduction in unemployment rates between 2016 and 2023, making it unlikely to achieve full employment by 2030. IMF data also reveals significant disparities among member states. For instance, while the Philippines saw a sharp decline in unemployment between 2020 and 2025 (10.4 to 3.9 per cent), its unemployment rates are still much higher than those in Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. More-over, informal employment is more widespread in ASEAN than expected from the level of GDP-per capita. Again, intra-regional divergences persist in employment quality and productivity; Cambodia and Lao PDR’s economies are substantially more informal sector-driven than Singapore and Malaysia’s high-value, diversified economies.
Old and New (economic) Insecurities
The SDG Progress Report also identified, between the period of 2016 and 2023, an increased proportion of both women and men in the informal sector. While informal employment can provide an entry point into entrepreneurship, it is often characterised by women bearing disproportionate burden for unpaid or under-paid labour, job insecurity, and lack of social protection. This is a persistent concern even before the global pandemic. At the level of individual economic security, women still do not fare as well in the region, not only because of their preponderance in the informal sector but also due to the other factors as mentioned above. But there is both intra-regional and intra-national exceptions to this as well.
In addition, high regional GDP figures do not of course mean equitable income distribution. Across ASEAN, the richest 1 per cent hold about 25 to 33 per cent of total wealth, whereas the poorest 50 per cent own merely 14 to 19 per cent wealth, according to a 2025 Oxfam report. This is especially so in light of climate change. Studies have also found correlations between income inequality and human capital, environmental degradation, and the technological divide. Unless these issues are addressed, objectives of Goal 8, especially that of ‘decent work’, will be difficult to meet.
Moving Forward
The persistence of economic insecurities highlights that economic growth alone does not translate into inclusive and equitable development. Uneven progress under SDG 8 also constrains advances toward SDG 10, which aims to reduce socio-economic inequality within and among countries. This is important when we look towards ASEAN’s community vision for the future. There should be concerted efforts, region-wide, to not only move towards achieving Goal 8, but also to employ greater and sustained interest in reducing, as much as possible, intra-regional economic disparities very simply because inequalities of income, opportunity, class, sex, disability, and so on, threaten the long-term regional goals of poverty reduction and of economic security and growth. Moving forward, ASEAN’s focus should not only be on sustaining economic growth and development, but also on ensuring that it is equitable and inclusive. This would go a long way in helping the region achieve its goal of creating a resilient, innovative, dynamic, and people-centered ASEAN by 2045.
Economic Security and Development in ASEAN — An SDG Goal Review
By Tamara Nair
At almost 60 years since its founding, ASEAN’s ‘success story’ as a regional multilateral organisation is often cited as one of tremendous economic development. It has transformed from a modest combined economy of US$24 billion in 1967 to the world’s fourth-largest economic bloc in 2024, with an estimated GDP of US$4.13 trillion. By demonstrating a consistent upward trajectory of GDP and GDP per capita from 2020 to 2023, it has also reflected economic resilience post-COVID-19.
Yet, even beyond the indicators of GDP and GDP per capita, variables like job stability and income disparity give a more comprehensive picture of economic security and development in the region. It is beneficial to contextualise ASEAN’s economic feats within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. As the 2030 deadline for achieving the SDGs approaches, is ASEAN’s economic performance on the path to inclusive and sustainable development?
Goal 8 and a Regional Progress Report
ASEAN’s economic growth has been largely consistent with the objectives of Goal 8, which focuses on promoting entrepreneurship, creating quality jobs, and ‘decent work’ opportunities for everyone. Such work entails fair income, workplace security, social protection for families, and better prospects for personal development. According to the IMF, Southeast Asia’s real GDP growth rate is at 4.3 per cent in 2025, well above the average global growth rate of 3.2 per cent. However, despite strong macroeconomic performance, the region sees an uneven progress towards inclusive and ‘decent’ work opportunities.
According to ASEAN’s 2025 SDG Progress Report, the region recorded only a minor reduction in unemployment rates between 2016 and 2023, making it unlikely to achieve full employment by 2030. IMF data also reveals significant disparities among member states. For instance, while the Philippines saw a sharp decline in unemployment between 2020 and 2025 (10.4 to 3.9 per cent), its unemployment rates are still much higher than those in Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. More-over, informal employment is more widespread in ASEAN than expected from the level of GDP-per capita. Again, intra-regional divergences persist in employment quality and productivity; Cambodia and Lao PDR’s economies are substantially more informal sector-driven than Singapore and Malaysia’s high-value, diversified economies.
Old and New (economic) Insecurities
The SDG Progress Report also identified, between the period of 2016 and 2023, an increased proportion of both women and men in the informal sector. While informal employment can provide an entry point into entrepreneurship, it is often characterised by women bearing disproportionate burden for unpaid or under-paid labour, job insecurity, and lack of social protection. This is a persistent concern even before the global pandemic. At the level of individual economic security, women still do not fare as well in the region, not only because of their preponderance in the informal sector but also due to the other factors as mentioned above. But there is both intra-regional and intra-national exceptions to this as well.
In addition, high regional GDP figures do not of course mean equitable income distribution. Across ASEAN, the richest 1 per cent hold about 25 to 33 per cent of total wealth, whereas the poorest 50 per cent own merely 14 to 19 per cent wealth, according to a 2025 Oxfam report. This is especially so in light of climate change. Studies have also found correlations between income inequality and human capital, environmental degradation, and the technological divide. Unless these issues are addressed, objectives of Goal 8, especially that of ‘decent work’, will be difficult to meet.
Moving Forward
The persistence of economic insecurities highlights that economic growth alone does not translate into inclusive and equitable development. Uneven progress under SDG 8 also constrains advances toward SDG 10, which aims to reduce socio-economic inequality within and among countries. This is important when we look towards ASEAN’s community vision for the future. There should be concerted efforts, region-wide, to not only move towards achieving Goal 8, but also to employ greater and sustained interest in reducing, as much as possible, intra-regional economic disparities very simply because inequalities of income, opportunity, class, sex, disability, and so on, threaten the long-term regional goals of poverty reduction and of economic security and growth. Moving forward, ASEAN’s focus should not only be on sustaining economic growth and development, but also on ensuring that it is equitable and inclusive. This would go a long way in helping the region achieve its goal of creating a resilient, innovative, dynamic, and people-centered ASEAN by 2045.
