World Inequality report, 2022

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In news– World Inequality Report (WIR), 2022 has been released recently.

About the report-

It presents the most up-to-date and complete data on the various facets of inequality worldwide as of 2021: global wealth, income, gender and ecological inequality.
The World Inequality Database aims to provide open and convenient access to the most extensive available database on the historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, both within countries and between countries.
WID was initially created as the World Top Incomes Database (WTID) in January 2011 with the aim of providing convenient and free access to all the existing series.
In December 2015, the WTID was subsumed into the WID, The World Wealth and Income Database.
MENA (Middle East and North Africa) is the most unequal region in the world, Europe has the lowest inequality levels.
MENA consists of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Nations have become richer, but governments have become poor, when we take a look at the gap between the net wealth of governments and net wealth of the private and public sectors.
Wealth inequalities have increased at the very top of the distribution.
The rise in private wealth has also been unequal within countries and at the world level.
Global multimillionaires have captured a disproportionate share of global wealth growth over the past several decades: the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, whereas the bottom 50% captured just 2% of it.
Gender inequalities remain considerable at the global level, and progress within countries is too slow
Data shows that these inequalities are not just a rich vs. poor country issue, but rather a high emitters vs low emitters issue within all countries.

India’s performance-

It says that India is among the most unequal countries in the world, with rising poverty and an ‘affluent elite.’
It highlights that the top 10% and top 1% in India hold 57% and 22% of the total national income respectively while the bottom 50% share has gone down to 13%.
The average national income of the Indian adult population is Rs 2,04,200.
Here, the bottom 50% earns Rs 53,610 while the top 10% earns Rs 11,66,520, over 20 times more.
The report says that emerging economies like India and China experienced faster increases in private wealth than wealthy countries after they transitioned away from regulated economies.
In India, particularly, private wealth went up from 290% in 1980 to 560% in 2020.
The report shows that the income inequality in India under the British colonial rule (1858-1947) was very high, with a top 10% income share around 50%.
After independence, due to socialist-inspired five-year plans, this share was reduced to 35-40%.
The average household wealth in India is around Rs 9,83,010.
In 2021, the wealthiest 10% of the population owned 65% of total household wealth in India.
The share of female labour income share in India is equal to 18% which is significantly lower than the average in Asia (21%, excluding China) & is among the lowest in the world.