Indonesia has cut the share of its people living in extreme poverty from 86% in 1984 to 3.7% in 2025, World Bank data compiled by Our World in Data show.
Share of people living below the international poverty line of $3 a day in China and Indonesia, 1984-2025. Source: Our World in Data, World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (2026), CC BY.
The number of Indonesians living on less than $3 a day, adjusted for inflation and differences in living costs, has dropped from about 140mn to about 10mn over the period, researchers Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Arriagada wrote in a data insight published on October 13.
China is usually held up as the model for rapid poverty reduction, and for good reason: more than 90% of its population lived in extreme poverty in the early 1980s, against almost none by the early 2020s. But the Indonesian figures show the global decline was not China's achievement alone. "Some might assume that China is the only reason why global extreme poverty has declined. But that's wrong," the authors wrote.
The two countries started from almost the same point. In 1984, 91% of Chinese and 86% of Indonesians lived below the poverty line, and the two curves ran close together until the mid-1990s.
The rate rose sharply during the 1998 Asian financial crisis, then fell below 50% in the early 2000s. China's decline was steeper over the following decade, reaching close to zero around 2020; Indonesia's rate kept falling to around 10% by 2020.
The authors cautioned that the international poverty line is set very low, but said Indonesia has also made progress when measured against higher poverty lines.