History will probably remember the pandemic as the “first time since they began to record that inequality increased in virtually every country on earth at the same time.” This is the verdict of Oxfam’s inequality report on 2020, a terrible year that affected the poorest and hardest on the planet.
Why it’s important: The world’s poorest were already in a race against time, facing an existential risk in the form of global climate change. The coronavirus pandemic could push back global poverty reduction to a full decade, according to the World Bank.
- The virus has exposed how work, health and education systems create additional disadvantages for low-income families and minorities, while allowing the rich to recover quickly.
- Most of the nearly 300 economists around the world 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. It is a larger number of people than the population of the United States.
- More than 3 billion people it had no access to health care and three-quarters of workers did not have access to sick pay. Meanwhile, the wealth of the top 1% continued to rise.
How it works: In the United States, 22,000 blacks and Latin 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 group the communities of color as reported by Axios.
Yes, but: While inequality inside countries got much worse by 2020, the world at large could have become less unequal. This is because rich countries were generally more affected by coronavirus than poorer countries, which tend to have much younger populations.
What to see: School closures have affected some 1.7 billion children worldwide. But children in rich countries could continue their education online and stayed out of school for much less time, about six weeks, on average, compared to the four months of children in poorer countries. Millions of girls dropped out of school in 2020 and will never return.
The summary: As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “Although we all float on the same sea, it is clear that some are in superyachts, while others cling to the wreckage.”