Chapter 03

The details

©UNDP Guinea Bissau/Gwenn Dubourthoumieu

Growing
wealth gap

A
2018 Oxfam
International report
shows that

26 people own the same wealth as 3.8 billion

who make up the poorest half of humanity.

Economic inequality

More than a quarter of all adults are working poor, making less than

$3.10 per day

And the number of low-paid workers is rising.

Yet between 2017 and 2018

01 billionare

was created every two days.

A recent OECD report says that on average the share of middle income households—those earning between 75 percent and 200 percent of the median national income—fell from 64 percent to 61 percent between the mid-1980s and mid-2010s.

©UNDP Eurasia/Jodi Hilton

Resource
inequality

But inequality isn’t just about money – it can be seen in life expectancies, in education, and whether a person can afford healthcare and receive public services. People living with disabilities are particularly vulnerable.
Spatial

inequality

© Caio Pederneiras / Shutterstock.com We are seeing greater geographic, or spatial inequality, which is the unequal distribution of resources in one area. It is deeply tied to racial and cultural inequality and can be seen most clearly in cities. For instance, the poorer a person’s neighbourhood, the less likely they will attend a good school, which in turn stunts their opportunities to advance economically.

Gender
inequality

There’s also a strong gender element in play — women don’t earn as much as men, they don’t receive the same levels of education, are more likely to be unemployed, and are too often locked out of economic and political leadership.

©UNDP Afghanistan/S. Omer Sadaat
Fun facts
01 Men own
50%

more of the world's wealth than women

 02 Men control
86%

of corporations

 03 Women hold just
24%

of national political seats

 04 Women represent
13%

of agricultural land ownership
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Where women do lead men is in the amount of unpaid work they do -

2.6

times more than men

The UN estimates this work is worth between 10 to 39 percent of a country’s Gross Domestic Product.

©UNDP Guatemala/Caroline Trutmann
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A global
challenge

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