In 2023, Switzerland led the ranking of countries with the highest average wealth per adult, with approximately ******* U.S. dollars per person. Luxembourg was ranked second with an average wealth of around ******* U.S. dollars per adult, followed by Hong Kong SAR. However, the figures do not show the actual distribution of wealth. The Gini index shows wealth disparities in countries worldwide. Does wealth guarantee a longer life? As the old adage goes, “money can’t buy you happiness”, yet wealth and income are continuously correlated to the quality of life of individuals in different countries around the world. While greater levels of wealth may not guarantee a higher quality of life, it certainly increases an individual’s chances of having a longer one. Although they do not show the whole picture, life expectancy at birth is higher in the wealthier world regions. Does money bring happiness? A number of the world’s happiest nations also feature in the list of those countries for which average income was highest. Finland, however, which was the happiest country worldwide in 2022, is missing from the list of the top twenty countries with the highest wealth per adult. As such, the explanation for this may be the fact that the larger proportion of the population has access to a high income relative to global levels. Measures of quality of life Criticism of the use of income or wealth as a proxy for quality of life led to the creation of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Although income is included within the index, it also has other factors taken into account, such as health and education. As such, the countries with the highest human development index can be correlated to those with the highest income levels. That said, none of the above measures seek to assess the physical and mental environmental impact of a high quality of life sourced through high incomes. The happy planet index demonstrates that the inclusion of experienced well-being and ecological footprint in place of income and other proxies for quality of life results in many of the world’s materially poorer nations being included in the happiest.

Graph and download economic data for Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005Q) from Q4 1987 to Q1 2025 about net worth, Net, households, and USA.

In Europe, the variation in average amounts of financial wealth per adult varied considerably as of 2022, from approximately ******* U.S. dollars in Switzerland to roughly ***** U.S. dollars in Azerbaijan. In Europe, the overall average financial wealth per adult as of 2022 was ****** U.S. dollars. In terms of private wealth, Europe held the second highest value in the world, after North America. What is financial wealth? Financial wealth, also known as financial assets or liquid assets can include wealth that an individual has in the forms of cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and bank deposits. In addition to financial wealth, wealth can also be measured in other assets, called non-financial wealth. This includes physical assets, such as real estate, land, vehicles, jewelry, and art, just to name a few. Where do most wealthy individuals live? Individuals with a net worth over *********** U.S. dollars are called high-net worth individuals (HNWI). The United States was the home country to the highest number of HNWIs in 2021. China followed, although their number of HNWIs did not even reach ********* of the number in the United States. In Europe, Switzerland is the country with the highest average financial wealth per adult, but with its small population size, the number of HNWIs does not come near the numbers in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy – the European countries with the highest number of HNWIs. Considering Switzerland’s small population size, however, it is the country in the world with the highest proportion of millionaires.

The statistic above provides the ranking of countries by median self-reported household income. Between 2006 and 2012, the median household income in Norway was about 51,489 U.S. dollars.

The average for 2023 based on 146 countries was 62.92 percent. The highest value was in Somalia: 123.53 percent and the lowest value was in Ireland: 26.77 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Top 0.1% (99.9th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLTP1246) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Guyana was the South American country 20360the highest gross national income per capita, with 20,360 U.S. dollars per person in 2023. Uruguay ranked second, registering a GNI of 19,530 U.S. dollars per person, based on current prices. Gross national income (GNI) is the aggregated sum of the value added by residents in an economy, plus net taxes (minus subsidies) and net receipts of primary income from abroad. Which are the largest Latin American economies? Based on annual gross domestic product, which is the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year, Brazil leads the regional ranking, followed by Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Many Caribbean countries and territories hold the highest GDP per capita in this region, measurement that reflects how GDP would be divided if it was perfectly equally distributed among the population. GNI per capita is, however, a more exact calculation of wealth than GDP per capita, as it takes into consideration taxes paid and income receipts from abroad. How much inequality is there in Latin America? In many Latin American countries, more than half the total wealth created in their economies is held by the richest 20 percent of the population. When a small share of the population concentrates most of the wealth, millions of people don't have enough to make ends meet. For instance, in Brazil, about 5.32 percent of the population lives on less than 3.2 U.S. dollars per day.

This dataset provides values for PERSONAL SAVINGS reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

The average for 2023 based on 96 countries was 23.44 percent. The highest value was in Cambodia: 57.1 percent and the lowest value was in the Seychelles: 3.16 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This dataset provides values for HOUSEHOLDS DEBT TO INCOME reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Worldwide, Luxembourg has the highest net national income per capita, reaching nearly 78,000 U.S. dollars in 2021. Norway and Switzerland followed behind. When adjusting for pruchasing power parity (PPP), Bermuda has the highest average income or wealth per adult worldwide.

The table shows the level of bank credit to households (both mortgage credit and consumer credit) around the world including the most recent value and recent changes. The numbers are in billion local currency units and are updated continuously as the national authorities release the new data. Household credit carries benefits and risks to the economy. On the positive side, it allows households to purchase real estate, cars, and other items by spreading the cost over time. This makes household consumption more even over time and not so dependent on fluctuations in incomes. On the negative side, many financial crises are associated with a massive build up in household credit. Easy money pushes up property values and raises the debt levels. Then, an increase in interest rates or a drop in incomes can put significant strain on the household budgets. Households cut their spending in order to deleverage (reduce their debt) and the economy enters a recession. Household credit is now a major component of bank credit in the advanced economies and is rapidly catching up with the levels of business credit in the developing world.

Abstract

In order to elucidate the financial lives of smallholder households and build the evidence base on this important client group, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) of the World Bank launched the year-long Financial Diaries with Smallholder Families (the “Smallholder Diaries”). The study captured the financial and in-kind transactions of 270 households in Tanzania, Pakistan and Mozambique, of which 86 households are in the fertile farmlands of western Tanzania. The sample was drawn from 2 villages in Tanzania. Villages were selected based on their involvement in agriculture, and convenience in reaching them. Between June 2014 and July 2015, enumerators visited sample families every fortnight to conduct comprehensive face-to-face interviews to track all the money flowing into and out of their households.

Geographic coverage

Village level

Analysis unit

Households

Universe

Once the villages for the Smallholder Diaries were selected, the research teams used a screening process to help identify a range of families with 5 acres of land or less, diverse income sources, access to agricultural inputs, wealth levels, and crops to participate in the research. In Tanzania, these eligible households were identified using a participatory rural appraisal wealth-ranking technique. Working with committees of village representatives, the research teams conducted wealth-ranking exercises to assess the relative wealth of households in village hamlets or subareas.

Kind of data

Event/transaction data [evn]

Sampling procedure

The methodology and sample size of the Smallholder Diaries was designed to generate a rich pool of detailed information and insights on a targeted population. The Smallholder Diaries are not intended to be statistically representative of smallholder families in participating countries. Total number of households in sample from Tanzania were 86, which were drawn from 2 villages. Villages were selected based on their involvement in agriculture, and convenience in reaching them. The research teams used a screening process to help identify a range of families with 5 acres of land or less, diverse income sources, access to agricultural inputs, wealth levels, and crops to participate in the research. In Tanzania, these eligible households were identified using a participatory rural appraisal wealth-ranking technique. Working with committees of village representatives, the research teams conducted wealth-ranking exercises to assess the relative wealth of households in village hamlets or subareas.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Cleaning operations

All data editing was done manually. The data was collected through face to face interviews, using a computer tablet preloaded with the data collection software and all previously recorded data. The tablets were synchronized each day so that all collected data was uploaded to the server and the tablet would receive the latest version of the database.

Response rate

95 percent

Over ** million individuals residing in the United States belonged to the global top one percent of ultra-high net worth individuals worldwide in 2022. China ranked second, with over **** million top one percent wealth holders globally. France followed in third.

Abstract

South African policymakers are endeavouring to ensure that the poor have better access to financial services. However, a lack of understanding of the financial needs of poor households impedes a broad strategy to attend to this need.
The Financial Diaries study addresses this knowledge gap by examining financial management in rural and urban households. The study is a year-long household survey based on fortnightly interviews in Diepsloot (Gauteng), Langa (Western Cape) and Lugangeni (Eastern Cape). In total, 160 households were involved in this pioneering study which promises to offer important insights into how poor people manage their money as well as the context in which poor people make financial decisions. The study paints a rich picture of the texture of financial markets in townships, highlighting the prevalence of informal financial products, the role of survivalist business and the contribution made by social grants. The Financial Diaries dataset includes highly detailed, daily cash flow data on income, expenditure and financial flows on both a household and individual basis.

Geographic coverage

Langa in Cape Town, Diepsloot in Johannesburg and Lugangeni, a rural village in the Eastern Cape

Analysis unit

Units of analysis in the Financial Diaries Study 2003-2004 include households and individuals

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

To create the sampling frame for the Financial Diaries, the researchers echoed the method used in the Rutherford (2002) and Ruthven (2002), a participatory wealth ranking (PWR). Within South Africa, the participatory wealth ranking method is used by the Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF), a prominent NGO microlender based in the rural Limpopo Province. Simanowitz (1999) compared the PWR method to the Visual Indicator of Poverty (VIP) and found that the VIP test was seen to be at best 70% consistent with the PWR tests. At times one third of the list of households that were defined as the poorest by the VIP test was actually some of the richest according to the PWR. The PWR method was also implicitly assessed in van der Ruit, May and Roberts (2001) by comparing it to the Principle Components Analysis (PCA) used by CGAP as a means to assess client poverty. They found that three quarters of those defined as poor by the PCA were also defined as poor by the PWR. We closely followed the SEF manual to conduct our wealth rankings, and consulted with SEF on adapting the method to urban areas.

The first step is to consult with community leaders and ask how they would divide their community. Within each type of areas, representative neighbourhoods of about 100 households each were randomly chosen. Townships in South Africa are organised by street - with each street or zone having its own street committee. The street committees are meant to know everyone on their street and to serve as stewards of all activity within the street. Each street committee in each area was invited to a central meeting and asked to map their area and give a roster of household names. Following the mapping, each area was visited and the maps and rosters were checked by going door to door with the street committee.

Two references groups were then selected from the street committee and senior members of the community with between four and eight people in each reference group. Each reference group was first asked to indicate how they define a poor household versus those that are well off. This discussion had a dual purpose. First, it relayed information about what each community believes is rich or poor. Second, it started the reference group thinking about which households belong under which heading.

Following this discussion, each reference group then ranked each household in the neighbourhood according to their perceived wealth. The SEF methodology of wealth ranking is de-normalised in that reference groups are invited to put households into as many different wealth piles as they feel in appropriate. Only households that are known by both reference groups were kept in the sample.

The SEF guidelines were used to assign a score to each household in a particular pile. The scores were created by dividing 100 by the number of piles multiplied by the level of the pile. This means that if the poorest pile was number 1, then every household in the pile was assigned a score of 100, representing 100% poverty. If the wealthiest pile was pile number 6, then every household in that pile received a score of 16.7 and every household in pile 5 received a score of 33.3. An average score for both reference groups was taken for the distribution.

One way of assessing how good the results are is to analyse how consistent the rankings were between the two reference groups. According to the SEF methodology, a result is consistent if the scores between the two reference groups have no more than a 25 points difference. A result is inconsistent if the difference between the scores is between 26 and 50 points while a result is unreliable is the difference between the scores is above 50 points. SEF uses both consistent and inconsistent rankings, as long as they use the average across two reference groups - this would mean that 91% of the sample could be used. However, because only used two reference groups were used, only the consistent household for the final sample selection was considered.

To test this further,the number of times that the reference groups put a household in the exact same category was counted. The extent of agreement at either end of the wealth spectrum between the two reference groups was also assessed. This result would be unbiased by how many categories the reference groups put households into.

Following the example used in India and Bangladesh, the sample was divided into three different wealth categories depending on the household's overall score. Making a distinction between three different categories of wealth allowed the following of a similar ranking of wealth to Bangladesh and India, but also it kept the sample from being over-stratified. A sample of 60 households each was then drawn randomly from each area. To draw the sample based on a proportion representation of each wealth ranking within the population would likely leave the sample lacking in wealthier households of some rankings to draw conclusions. Therefore the researchers drew equally from each ranking.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Abstract

In order to elucidate the financial lives of smallholder households and build the evidence base on this important client group, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) of the World Bank launched the year-long Financial Diaries with Smallholder Families (the "Smallholder Diaries"). The study captured the financial and in-kind transactions of 270 households in Tanzania, Pakistan and Mozambique, of which 93 households are in impoverished northern Mozambique. The sample came was drawn from 3 villages in Mozambique. Villages were selected based on their involvement in agriculture, and convenience in reaching them. Between June 2014 and July 2015, enumerators visited sample families every fortnight to conduct comprehensive face-to-face interviews to track all the money flowing into and out of their households.

Geographic coverage

Village level

Analysis unit

Households

Universe

Once the villages for the Smallholder Diaries were selected, the research teams used a screening process to help identify a range of families with 5 acres of land or less, diverse income sources, access to agricultural inputs, wealth levels, and crops to participate in the research. In Mozambique, these eligible households were identified using a participatory rural appraisal wealth-ranking technique. Working with committees of village representatives, the research teams conducted wealth-ranking exercises to assess the relative wealth of households in village hamlets or subareas.

Kind of data

Event/transaction data [evn]

Sampling procedure

The methodology and sample size of the Smallholder Diaries was designed to generate a rich pool of detailed information and insights on a targeted population. The Smallholder Diaries are not intended to be statistically representative of smallholder families in participating countries. Total number of households in sample: 93 (Mozambique) and the sample was drawn from 3 villages. Villages were selected based on their involvement in agriculture, and convenience in reaching them. The research teams used a screening process to help identify a range of families with 5 acres of land or less, diverse income sources, access to agricultural inputs, wealth levels, and crops to participate in the research. In Mozambique, these eligible households were identified using a participatory rural appraisal wealth-ranking technique. Working with committees of village representatives, the research teams conducted wealth-ranking exercises to assess the relative wealth of households in village hamlets or subareas.

Sampling deviation

The sample initially included 286 households in all three countries, and the study ended with 273 households in total - an attrition rate similar to what has been observed in the past in similar Financial Diaries exercises. Households left the study due to moving from the study villages, seasonal migration, and occasionally by the prompting of the research team due to concerns about the household's willingness to be forthcoming about important sources of income.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Cleaning operations

The data was collected through face to face interviews, using a computer tablet preloaded with the data collection software and all previously recorded data. The tablets were synchronized each day so that all collected data was uploaded to the server and the tablet would receive the latest version of the database.

Response rate

Approximately 95 percent

The table shows the percent change in household consumption from the same quarter last year. The first column of numbers is the value for the latest quarter and the next two columns show the rate of consumption growth in the previous quarter and a year ago. Household consumption is not as volatile as investment by firms but it is nonetheless the main component of the GDP and, as such, its dynamics are important for overall economic growth. You can also look at consumption as share of GDP to compare their levels across countries.

The average for 2017 based on 79 countries was 105 robberies per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Costa Rica: 1587 robberies per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Oman: 1 robberies per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 2003 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Portugal, Canada, and the United States were the countries with the highest house price to income ratio in 2024. In all three countries, the index exceeded 130 index points, while the average for all OECD countries stood at 116.2 index points. The index measures the development of housing affordability and is calculated by dividing nominal house price by nominal disposable income per head, with 2015 set as a base year when the index amounted to 100. An index value of 120, for example, would mean that house price growth has outpaced income growth by 20 percent since 2015. How have house prices worldwide changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? House prices started to rise gradually after the global financial crisis (2007–2008), but this trend accelerated with the pandemic. The countries with advanced economies, which usually have mature housing markets, experienced stronger growth than countries with emerging economies. Real house price growth (accounting for inflation) peaked in 2022 and has since lost some of the gain. Although, many countries experienced a decline in house prices, the global house price index shows that property prices in 2023 were still substantially higher than before COVID-19. Renting vs. buying In the past, house prices have grown faster than rents. However, the home affordability has been declining notably, with a direct impact on rental prices. As people struggle to buy a property of their own, they often turn to rental accommodation. This has resulted in a growing demand for rental apartments and soaring rental prices.