South Africa had the highest inequality in income distribution in 2024, with a Gini score of **. Its South African neighbor, Namibia, followed in second. The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of income (or consumption) distribution among individuals or households within a country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, and a value of 100 represents absolute inequality. All the 20 most unequal countries in the world were either located in Africa or Latin America & The Caribbean.
Brazil is one of the most unequal countries in terms of income in Latin America. In 2022, it was estimated that almost 57 percent of the income generated in Brazil was held by the richest 20 percent of its population. Among the Latin American countries with available data included in this graph, Colombia came in first, as the wealthiest 20 percent of the Colombian population held over 59 percent of the country's total income.
Based on the degree of inequality in income distribution measured by the Gini coefficient, Colombia was the most unequal country in Latin America as of 2022. Colombia's Gini coefficient amounted to 54.8. The Dominican Republic recorded the lowest Gini coefficient at 37, even below Uruguay and Chile, which are some of the countries with the highest human development indexes in Latin America. The Gini coefficient explained The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of the distribution of income among individuals or households in a given country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, whereas 100 would be the highest possible degree of inequality. This measurement reflects the degree of wealth inequality at a certain moment in time, though it may fail to capture how average levels of income improve or worsen over time. What affects the Gini coefficient in Latin America? Latin America, as other developing regions in the world, generally records high rates of inequality, with a Gini coefficient ranging between 37 and 55 points according to the latest available data from the reporting period 2010-2023. According to the Human Development Report, wealth redistribution by means of tax transfers improves Latin America's Gini coefficient to a lesser degree than it does in advanced economies. Wider access to education and health services, on the other hand, have been proven to have a greater direct effect in improving Gini coefficient measurements in the region.
Comparing the *** selected regions regarding the gini index , South Africa is leading the ranking (**** points) and is followed by Namibia with **** points. At the other end of the spectrum is Slovakia with **** points, indicating a difference of *** points to South Africa. The Gini coefficient here measures the degree of income inequality on a scale from * (=total equality of incomes) to *** (=total inequality).The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in more than *** countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).
In 2023, Bulgaria had the highest Gini Index score in the European Union at 37.2, implying that the country had the highest level of inequality among European countries. The Gini Index is a measure of inequality within economies, a lower score indicates more equality, and a higher score less equality. Slovakia had the lowest score among EU countries for 2023 with a score of 21.6, suggesting that it is the most egalitarian society in Europe.
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In this study we use economic input-output analysis to calculate the inequality footprint of nations. An inequality footprint shows the link that each country's domestic economic activity has to income distribution elsewhere in the world. To this end we use employment and household income accounts for 187 countries and an historical time series dating back to 1990. Our results show that in 2010, most developed countries had an inequality footprint that was higher than their within-country inequality, meaning that in order to support domestic lifestyles, these countries source imports from more unequal economies. Amongst exceptions are the United States and United Kingdom, which placed them on a par with many developing countries. Russia has a high within-country inequality nevertheless it has the lowest inequality footprint in the world, which is because of its trade connections with the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe. Our findings show that the commodities that are inequality-intensive, such as electronic components, chemicals, fertilizers, minerals, and agricultural products often originate in developing countries characterized by high levels of inequality. Consumption of these commodities may implicate within-country inequality in both developing and developed countries.
Between 2010 and 2022, Colombia's data on the degree of inequality in wealth distribution based on the Gini coefficient reached 51.5. That year, the country was deemed as one of the most unequal countries in Latin America.
The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of the distribution of income (or consumption) among individuals or households in a given country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, whereas 100 would be the highest possible degree of inequality.
Between 2010 and 2023, Brazil's data on the degree of inequality in wealth distribution based on the Gini coefficient reached 52. That year, Brazil was deemed one of the most unequal country in Latin America. Prior to 2010, wealth distribution in Brazil had shown signs of improvement, with the Gini coefficient decreasing in the previous 3 reporting periods. The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of the distribution of income (or consumption) among individuals or households in a given country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, whereas 100 would be the highest possible degree of inequality.
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ambia is simultaneously amongst the poorest and the most unequal countries in the world. In 2022, 64.3 percent of the population—about 12.6 million individuals—was living on less than US$2.15 a day. This level is not only the 6th highest in the world but it is also misaligned with the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita level. In four of the five poorer countries, GDP per capita is between one-quarter and one-half of Zambia’s GDP per capita. The remaining country is South Sudan, which is immersed in a protracted fragility and conflict situation. At the same time, consumption inequality is high, even when compared with the sub-group of highly unequal resource-rich countries. In 2022, the Gini index stood at 51.5—significantly above the World Bank’s newly adopted high-inequality threshold of 40. This places Zambia as the country with the 4th highest inequality in the region and the 6th highest globally. Resource-rich countries with similar or higher inequality have substantially lower poverty levels.
In 2024, the national gross income per capita in Brazil amounted to around 9,950 U.S. dollars, an increase from 9,310 dollars per person in the previous year. 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. Excluding countries and territories in the Caribbean, Uruguay and Chile were the Latin American countries with the highest national income per capita. Demographic elements and income There are many factors that may influence the income level, such as gender, academic attainment, location, ethnicity, etc. The gender pay gap, for example, is significant in Brazil. As of 2024, the monthly income per capita of men was 3,549 Brazilian reals, while the figure was 2,793 reals in the case of women. Additionally, monthly per capita household income varies greatly from state to state; the figures registered in Distrito Federal and São Paulo more than double the income of federative units like Acre, Alagoas or Maranhão. A high degree of inequality The Gini coefficient measures the degree of income inequality on a scale from 0 (total equality of incomes) to 100 (total inequality). Between 2010 and 2023, Brazil's degree of inequality in wealth distribution based on the Gini coefficient reached 52. That year, Brazil was deemed one of the most unequal countries in Latin America. Although the latest result represented one of the worst values in recent years, the Gini index is projected to improve slightly in the near future.
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Zambia is simultaneously amongst the poorest and the most unequal countries in the world. In 2022, 64.3 percent of the population - about 12.6 million individuals - was living on less than US$2.15 a day. This level is not only the 6th highest in the world but it is also misaligned with the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita level. In four of the five poorer countries, GDP per capita is between one-quarter and one-half of Zambia’s GDP per capita. The remaining country is South Sudan, which is immersed in a protracted fragility and conflict situation. At the same time, consumption inequality is high, even when compared with the sub-group of highly unequal resource-rich countries. In 2022, the Gini index stood at 51.5 - significantly above the World Bank’s newly adopted high-inequality threshold of 40. This places Zambia as the country with the 4th highest inequality in the region and the 6th highest globally. Resource-rich countries with similar or higher inequality have substantially lower poverty levels.
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This study examines the effect of inflation targeting (IT) on income distribution in a panel of 70 countries. Employing a variety of propensity score matching methods, we find strong evidence that that incomes became more unequal in IT-adopting countries relative to countries that did not adopt IT. On average, IT has been associated with a relative rise in the pre- and post-tax Gini coefficients of about 2 percentage points, and a relative increase in the share of national income going to the top 1% and 10% of households by about 12 percentage points and 13-17 percentage points.
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Zambia is simultaneously amongst the poorest and the most unequal countries in the world. In 2022, 64.3 percent of the population - about 12.6 million individuals - was living on less than US$2.15 a day. This level is not only the 6th highest in the world but it is also misaligned with the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita level. In four of the five poorer countries, GDP per capita is between one-quarter and one-half of Zambia’s GDP per capita. The remaining country is South Sudan, which is immersed in a protracted fragility and conflict situation. At the same time, consumption inequality is high, even when compared with the sub-group of highly unequal resource-rich countries. In 2022, the Gini index stood at 51.5 - significantly above the World Bank’s newly adopted high-inequality threshold of 40. This places Zambia as the country with the 4th highest inequality in the region and the 6th highest globally. Resource-rich countries with similar or higher inequality have substantially lower poverty levels.
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Abstract (en): While gender gaps in average math performance are close to zero in developed countries, women are still strongly underrepresented among math high performers. Using data from five successive waves of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we show that this underrepresentation is more severe in more unequal countries. This relationship holds for a wide range of societal inequalities that are not directly related to gender. It is also observed in other parts of the performance distribution and among various sets of countries, including developing countries. Similar relationships are found in science and reading. Such findings highlight how differences in socio-economic and cultural factors can affect gender gaps in performance. World
In 2023, Comoros was the most unequal country in the East African region based on the degree of inequality in income distribution measured by the Gini coefficient, which amounted to a value of 45.3. Seychelles recorded the lowest Gini coefficient, at 32.1. The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of the distribution of income (or consumption) among individuals or households within a country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, a value of 100 absolute inequalities.
Over the past 30 years, there has been an almost constant reduction in the poverty rate worldwide. Whereas nearly ** percent of the world's population lived on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars in terms of 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 1990, this had fallen to *** percent in 2022. This is even though the world's population was growing over the same period. However, there was a small increase in the poverty rate during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when thousands of people became unemployed overnight. Moreover, the rising cost of living in the aftermath of the pandemic and spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 meant that many people were struggling to make ends meet. Poverty is a regional problem Poverty can be measured in relative and absolute terms. Absolute poverty concerns basic human needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and clean drinking water, whereas relative poverty looks at whether people in different countries can afford a certain living standard. Most countries that have a high percentage of their population living in absolute poverty, meaning that they are poor compared to international standards, are regionally concentrated. African countries are most represented among the countries in which poverty prevails the most. In terms of numbers, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have the most people living in poverty worldwide. Inequality on the rise How wealth, or the lack thereof, is distributed within the global population and even within countries is very unequal. In 2022, the richest one percent of the world owned almost half of the global wealth, while the poorest 50 percent owned less than two percent in the same year. Within regions, Latin America had the most unequal distribution of wealth, but this phenomenon is present in all world regions.
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Abstract The Brazilian economy continues presenting the most unequal distribution of income among all countries in the world. The article presents the consequences of the growing disparities and considers the pros and cons of the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income Program, through a negative income tax, as an efficient instrument to remove poverty. The second part of this work identifies an analytical structure which could reproduce the effects, on the level of the productive structure, of a process of Income Distribution. The aim was achieved as a result of the choice of an Input-Output Model which used an enlargement of the basic Leontief (1951) Model, from a derivation of social accounting matrix, as resulted in an estimation of the disaggregated multipliers for production, income and employment.
The youth unemployment rate of South Africa was over ** percent in 2023, the highest of any G20 country. Italy followed with a youth unemployment rate of ** percent. In contrast, Japan's youth unemployment rate was the lowest at only *** percent. Economic crisis in Argentina At ** percent, youth unemployment in Argentina falls third out of the G20 nations. The Argentinian economy was hit by a recession beginning in 2022, with an average inflation rate of nearly ** percent that year, jumping to over *** percent in 2023. Such staggering inflation has hit Argentinian consumers hard, with the average consumer price index going from nearly *** in 2021 to ***** in 2022, before increasing to nearly ***** in 2023. While youth unemployment has fallen in Argentina since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, factors such as skyrocketing inflation make getting by difficult for many. Inequality in South Africa With a youth unemployment rate of just over ** percent, South Africa stands out from the rest of the G20 nations. Thirty years after the end of Apartheid, South Africa is considered the most unequal country in the world. Using the Gini Index, which measures income inequality with zero representing totally equal distribution and one representing unequal distribution, South Africa has a score of 0.63, higher than any other nation. Poverty and inequality are a major concern for South Africans, with over ** percent of survey respondents expressing worry over the issue in January 2024, a slight decrease from a recent peak of ** percent in August 2023.
This dataset comprises interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018 with health service users, health professionals, civil society representatives and health system managers in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. The Unequal Voices project – Vozes Desiguais in Portuguese – aimed to strengthen the evidence base on the politics of accountability for health equity via multi-level case studies of health systems in Brazil and Mozambique.The project conducted examined the trajectories of change in the political context and in patterns of health inequalities in Brazil and Mozambique, and carried out four cases studies to compare the operation of different accountability regimes across the two countries and between different areas within each country. The case studies tracked shifts in accountability relationships among managers, providers and citizens and changes in health system performance, in order to arrive at a better understanding of what works for different poor and marginalised groups in different contexts. In each country the research team studied one urban location with competitive politics and a high level of economic inequality and one rural location where the population as a whole has been politically marginalised and under-provided with services.
Health inequities - that is, inequalities in health which result from social, economic or political factors and unfairly disadvantage the poor and marginalised - are trapping millions of people in poverty. Unless they are tackled, the effort to fulfill the promise of universal health coverage as part of the fairer world envisaged in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals may lead to more waste and unfairness, because new health services and resources will fail to reach the people who need them most. In Mozambique, for example, the gap in infant mortality between the best-performing and worst-performing areas actually increased between 1997 and 2008, despite improvements in health indicators for the country as a whole. However, while many low- and middle-income countries are failing to translate economic growth into better health services for the poorest, some - including Brazil - stand out as having taken determined and effective action. One key factor that differentiates a strong performer like Brazil from a relatively weak performer like Mozambique is accountability politics: the formal and informal relationships of oversight and control that ensure that health system managers and service providers deliver for the poorest rather than excluding them. Since the mid-1990s, Brazil has transformed health policy to try to ensure that the poorest people and places are covered by basic services. This shift was driven by many factors: by a strong social movement calling for the right to health; by political competition as politicians realised that improving health care for the poor won them votes; by changes to health service contracting that changed the incentives for local governments and other providers to ensure that services reached the poor; and by mass participation that ensured citizen voice in decisions on health priority-setting and citizen oversight of services. However, these factors did not work equally well for all groups of citizens, and some - notably the country's indigenous peoples - continue to lag behind the population as a whole in terms of improved health outcomes.
This project is designed to address the ESRC-DFID call's key cross-cutting issue of structural inequalities, and its core research question "what political and institutional conditions are associated with effective poverty reduction and development, and what can domestic and external actors do to promote these conditions?", by comparing the dimensions of accountability politics across Brazil and Mozambique and between different areas within each country. As Mozambique and Brazil seek to implement similar policies to improve service delivery, in each country the research team will examine one urban location with competitive politics and a high level of economic inequality and one rural location where the population as a whole has been politically marginalised and under-provided with services, looking at changes in power relationships among managers, providers and citizens and at changes in health system performance, in order to arrive at a better understanding of what works for different poor and marginalised groups in different contexts.
As two Portuguese-speaking countries that have increasingly close economic, political and policy links, Brazil and Mozambique are also well-placed to benefit from exchanges of experience and mutual learning of the kind that Brazil is seeking to promote through its South-South Cooperation programmes. The project will support this mutual learning process by working closely with Brazilian and Mozambican organisations that are engaged in efforts to promote social accountability through the use of community scorecards and through strengthening...
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Zambia is simultaneously amongst the poorest and the most unequal countries in the world. In 2022, 64.3 percent of the population—about 12.6 million individuals—was living on less than US$2.15 a day. This level is not only the 6th highest in the world but it is also misaligned with the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita level. In four of the five poorer countries, GDP per capita is between one-quarter and one-half of Zambia’s GDP per capita. The remaining country is South Sudan, which is immersed in a protracted fragility and conflict situation. At the same time, consumption inequality is high, even when compared with the sub-group of highly unequal resource-rich countries. In 2022, the Gini index stood at 51.5—significantly above the World Bank’s newly adopted high-inequality threshold of 40. This places Zambia as the country with the 4th highest inequality in the region and the 6th highest globally. Resource-rich countries with similar or higher inequality have substantially lower poverty levels.
South Africa had the highest inequality in income distribution in 2024, with a Gini score of **. Its South African neighbor, Namibia, followed in second. The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of income (or consumption) distribution among individuals or households within a country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, and a value of 100 represents absolute inequality. All the 20 most unequal countries in the world were either located in Africa or Latin America & The Caribbean.