History will probably remember the pandemic as “the first time since records began that inequality has increased in almost every country on earth at the same time.” This is the verdict in Oxfam’s inequality report covering 2020 – a terrible year that has hit the poorest, heaviest on the planet.
Why does it matter: The world’s poorest were already in a race against time, facing an existential risk in the form of global climate change. According to the World Bank, the coronavirus pandemic could reduce global poverty reduction within a full decade.
- The virus exposed how employment, health and education systems create additional disadvantages for low-income families and minorities, while allowing the wealthiest to recover quickly.
- Most of the nearly 300 economists worldwide surveyed by Oxfam said they expect the virus to exacerbate gender (56%), racial (66%), wealth (78%) and income (87%) inequalities in their countries. .
By numbers: The number of people living on less than $ 1.90 a day could have increased by more than $ 400 million last year. There are more people than the United States population.
- Over 3 billion people they did not have access to health care, and three quarters of workers did not have access to medical pay. Meanwhile, the wealth of the first 1% continued to grow.
How it works: In the United States, 22,000 black and Latino Americans would still be alive today if their coronavirus mortality rates were the same as white people – the result of unequal access to health care, disproportionate rates of pre-existing conditions, and other disadvantages. which are composed in communities of color as reported by Axios.
Yes but: While inequality into the countries worsened a lot in 2020, the whole world could have become less unequal. This is because rich countries, in general, have been more affected by coronavirus than the poorest countries, which tend to have much younger populations.
What to look for: School closures have affected about 1.7 billion children globally. But children in rich countries were able to continue their online education and were excluded from school for much less time – about six weeks, on average, compared to four months for children in the poorest countries. Millions of girls have dropped out of school in 2020 and will never return.
Bottom line: As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “As we all float on the same sea, it is clear that some are in the superhighth, while others cling to the drifting debris.”