Complete eradication of poverty requires 230 years, gender inequality – 169 years

International experts have prepared several reports for the World Economic Forum (WEF), which started on Monday in Davos, Switzerland, two of which assess global income inequality and the persistent gender gap. According to their assessment, the pandemic has worsened the situation in both respects, and many indicators in the areas studied have not recovered to 2019 levels. However, judging by the surprisingly specific forecasts of experts, the situation with gender inequality in the world seems more positive – to eliminate this gap, according to their calculations, the world will need 169 years, while it will take 230 years to completely eradicate poverty.

At the current rate of change in the level of well-being of the population, the world will be able to get rid of poverty only in 230 years, it was calculated (.pdf) analysts of the international charity organization Oxfam, which regularly analyzes the economic inequality of the planet’s inhabitants.

They estimate that nearly 800 million wage earners around the world have not had their salaries adjusted to inflation since 2020, resulting in a collective loss of $1.5 trillion. This is equivalent to 25 days of unpaid work for each of them. Only 0.4% of the 1,600 largest and most influential companies in the world, according to Oxfam, have made public commitments to pay their workers at least a living wage and to maintain such a wage policy among their suppliers.

The reduction in wages in real terms was one of the reasons for the decline in the well-being of 60% of the population – in 2023, the financial situation of almost 5 billion people around the world worsened compared to 2019. This was also affected by the global increase in unemployment due to the pandemic and rising food prices. At the same time, Oxfam notes, the wealth of all the world’s billionaires has increased by $3.3 trillion over the past three years, and its growth rate has tripled inflation. In 2023, the world’s richest 1% owned 43% of financial assets. In the Middle East this share was 48%, in Asia – 50%, in Europe – 47%.

At this rate of income growth, according to Oxfam’s forecast, the world’s first dollar trillionaire will appear in the next ten years.

Analysts see the reason for the uneven distribution of income in the emergence of a “global oligarchy” and the strengthening of monopolies. So, if in 1997 40% of the world seed market was controlled by ten companies, now there are only two of them left. A similar trend is in the pharmaceutical industry: in 1995, the leaders in the pharmaceutical market included 60 companies, but over the past 20 years their number has decreased to 10. As a result, the ten largest companies in the world have concentrated in their hands assets worth $10.2 trillion, which is equivalent to the combined GDP of all countries in Africa and South America. At the same time, according to Oxfam estimates, global business, by increasing income, reduces the amount of taxes paid to the budgets of countries. Compared to 1980, the effective corporate tax rate in most OECD countries has now been cut by more than half due to lobbying by large corporations.

Another forecast – on the dynamics of gender inequality – was presented in Davos by experts from the World Economic Forum. He also looks far into the future, but compared to the “profitable” one he looks more optimistic. According to the authors of the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, it will take the world 169 years to eliminate economic inequality between men and women. Moreover, back in 2019 this period was 100 years.

The main factor that worsened prospects for achieving gender equality was, again, the pandemic.

The sectors hardest hit by pandemic restrictions (such as tourism and retail) employ a large proportion of women. On average, across 146 countries whose statistics are analyzed by WEF experts, women now have approximately 40% fewer opportunities for economic activity than men: the subindex with which they assess inequality in this area is now 60.1%. At the same time, the integral index of gender equality, which also includes equality in the political sphere, access to health care and education, at the end of 2023 turned out to be slightly higher (68.4%) due to the improvement in the situation in these areas.

The measures that Oxfam and WEF analysts propose to correct the situation of inequality in both cases involve, first of all, collecting more data – both on the incomes of the poorest and richest segments of the world’s population, and on the situation of women in the labor market. Based on them, governments could update their strategies for reducing inequality by introducing new types of income regulation, as well as supporting initiatives to develop the economic potential of women, experts believe.

Anastasia Manuilova