Poverty in affluent societies
As economic development advances, mass poverty diminishes and we enter an affluent society such as the developed countries of today (Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, USA, Japan, Austria, Italy, Canada, Australia, and so on). However, even in affluent societies, there remains some poverty owing to inequality of income distribution and unemployment owing to insufficiency of demand for products and labour, or laboursaving technical progress, in addition to the universal type of poverty. Unemployment insurance, retirement pension and family allowance are main institutions established for relief of poverty. The welfare state is a system to relieve poverty and to improve the living conditions of common people in affluent societies.