Final answer:
It is true that in 1970, Asia had a significant concentration of poverty, particularly in South Asia, and there was less wealth globally. Hans Rosling's data and observations are consistent with this, highlighting the severe wealth disparity and the large number of people living in poverty in Asia compared to other regions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The assertion that there was less wealth in 1970 and most of the poor were in Asia aligns with Hans Rosling's observations and statistical data on poverty and wealth distribution. It is true that Asia, at that time, had a significant portion of the world's population living in poverty, especially in South Asia. This was due to factors such as disparity in wealth distribution, with countries like Japan and South Korea being much wealthier than others like India and Cambodia. Moreover, poverty in Asia was characterized by a large population living in urban slums and working in low-paying jobs such as garment factories, leading to a high concentration of poverty in urban areas, unlike the more rural distribution of poverty in Africa.
Poverty levels globally have shown great variation, with the poor in wealthier countries often being better off than those in less-industrialized countries. Indeed, in 2006, strategies such as the United Nations' Millennium Project aimed to reduce global poverty. Planners estimated that industrialized nations should commit 0.7% of their gross national income to aid developing countries to drastically cut worldwide poverty levels, thus revealing an acknowledgment of the significant wealth disparity that existed.
In summary, while Africa has the majority of the world's poorest countries, Asia had the majority of the world's poorest people in the 1970s. This reality underscores the significant wealth inequality that was a defining characteristic of the global economic landscape at the time and continues to be a challenge in the present day.