Throughout Asia agriculture is still the largest single economic sector and the village is the principal form of human society. Outside Japan on the Pacific and Israel on the Mediterranean shores of the Asian continent the villages provide the homestead and determine the way of life of three-quarters to four-fifths of the population, and as a rule two-thirds to three-quarters of the working people are engaged in agricultural pursuits. Villagers not occupied in this way usually earn their living by processing, financing and trading the products of their communities. The town dwellers, rapidly increasing in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total population, are rarely far removed geographically and in their mental make-up from their ancestors. As much as two-thirds of their personal expenditure is spent on foodstuffs and thus a substantial portion of urban incomes flows back to the countryside.