A new report by the world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty, has made headlines about striking gaps in global inequality, where the Middle East stood out as the most unequal region in the world in terms of wealth, income and gender.
In the Middle East and North Africa, the income gap between the different countries varies significantly. In the Gulf countries, the gap in wealth is even higher than in the rest of the region.
About 75 billionaires in the MENA – most of whom reside in Gulf countries - control about $200 billion dollars.
In the more populated countries of the region, particularly North Africa and the Levant, the poorest 50 percent of the population earn twenty times less than the top 10 percent. In the Gulf, the poorest half of the population earn up to 32 times less than the top 10 percent.
In 2016, Piketty warned about the state of inequality in the region in an interview with The New Arab, arguing that this was one of the factors that fuelled the Arab Spring wave of uprisings from 2011.
Worldwide about 2,750 billionaires control 3.5 percent of the world’s wealth.
“More striking than income and wealth inequality in the MENA, however, is the gender inequality, especially in terms of labour income share”, Rowaida Moshrif, Middle East coordinator at the World Inequality Lab told The New Arab.
The World Inequality Report 2022, which provides the first estimates of the gender inequality in global earnings, estimated that on average, only 15 percent of the female population of the region have an income.
“In war zones such as in Yemen, the female income share can even go as low as 1 percent,” Moshrif added.
“In the past 10 years since the Arab Spring, the income, wealth and gender inequality in the Middle East has unfortunately even increased. War and instability exacerbate the situation. Women in particular do not have the same access to the labour market as men do, putting them in a particular vulnerable position.”
The inequality in the Middle East stands in stark contrast with Europe. In Europe, the top 10% share around 36% of total, whilst in MENA this figure is at 58%, the report states.
Such findings add to the debate about worsening inequality during a global pandemic, and the significant inequality gap between advanced and developing economies.
“The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population. Yet, in rich countries, government intervention prevented a massive rise in poverty, this was not the case in poor countries” explains Lucas Chancel, lead author of the report.
The report also addresses the large inequalities in carbon emissions which are essential for tackling climate change. The Global Inequality database shows that the top 10% of emitters are responsible for close to 50% of all emissions, while the bottom 50% produce 12% of the total.
The World Inequality Report 2022 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 analysis is based on several years’ work by more than one hundred researchers from around the world, and will be published by the World Inequality Lab. The data is available in the most complete database on economic inequality, the World Inequality Database. The report includes a foreword by 2019 economic Nobel prize laureates Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo.
The World Inequality Report 2022, the figures and datasets are available on the companion website of the report: //wid.world
In a nutshell
In 2021, after three decades of trade and financial globalization, global inequalities remain extremely pronounced: they are about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century. In addition, the Covid pandemic has exacerbated even more global inequalities. Our data shows that the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, with an acceleration since 2020. More generally speaking, wealth inequality remains at extreme levels in all regions.
“The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the very wealthy and the rest of the population. Yet, in rich countries, government intervention prevented a massive rise in poverty, this was not the case in poor countries. This shows the importance of social states in the fight against poverty.”, explains Lucas Chancel, lead author of the report.
Gabriel Zucman states: “The World Inequality Reports addresses a critical democratic need: rigorously documenting what is happening to inequality in all its dimensions. It is an invaluable resource for students, journalists, policymakers, and civil society all over the world.” Lucas Chancel adds “If there is one lesson to be learnt from the global investigation carried out in this report, it is that inequality is always political choice.”
Key messages
- MENA is the most unequal region in the world, Europe has the lowest inequality levels.
- 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
- Ecological inequality: our 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.
