There’s a huge gender component to income inequality that we’re ignoring

Thomson Reuters

• There’s a major gender component to global inequality: most of the world’s extreme-poor are women, and most uber-wealthy individuals are men, a new Oxfam report shows.
• Around 82% of all wealth generated in the last year went to the top 1%.
• The richest 1% hold more wealth than the whole of the rest of humanity.
• “Women provide $ 10 trillion in unpaid care annually to support the global economy.”

Oxfam’s new report on global inequality contains a barrage of startling, depressing statistics including:

– 82% of all wealth generated in the last year went to the top 1%.

– The bottom 50% saw no benefits from growth at all.

– The world’s billionaires saw their fortunes swell by $ 762 billion in just a year.

– The richest 1% hold more wealth than the whole of the rest of humanity.

Yet perhaps the most crucial fact highlighted in the report is this: “Women provide $ 10 trillion in unpaid care annually to support the global economy.”

Women’s marches took over major US cities over the weekend, and were echoed overseas. The Oxfam report shows just how far there is to go.

“Women are the big losers in the global economy, often trapped in the worst jobs, frequently because they are providing vital unpaid care to their families and communities,” the report says. “The highest earners and wealthiest people – often the same people – are predominantly men.”

The two charts below depict with rather extreme clarity just how skewed the economy has become in favor of the rich. The first shows the gains in the number and total wealth of billionaires since the turn of the century.

Oxfam

This second graphic reveals just how large a chunk of the benefits of economic growth and wealth creation have been accumulating to the very top of the income scale.
Oxfam

One especially troubling aspect of rising inequality, says Oxfam, is that it appears related to hereditary and monopolistic forms of wealth, not productivity gains. 

“There is mounting evidence that the current levels of inequality are not the result of effort and risk-taking, but rather windfall income that does not reflect productive activities, which economists call ‘rent,'” the report says.

“Three phenomena are important in this respect: 1. Monopolies. 2. Cronyism. 3. Inheritance. There is also evidence that social mobility – the ability of those who are born poor to die rich – can be affected negatively by inequality.”

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