Global Wealth, Inequality, and Development

Global poverty and wealth

• 10% of the world pop live on less than $1.90 per day

• Wealthiest 1% of world pop holds as much as 6.9 billion people

• 70% of the world's population live in countries where the wealth gap is growing

• 2019, north America and Europe held 55% of world's wealth, but only 17% of global adult population.

Global inequality

• Global inequality: systematic disparities in income, wealth, health, education, access to technology, opportunity, and power among countries, communities and households around the world

• Gross national income-purchasing power parity per capita

  • How much goods/services could someone buy in the US with a given amount of their local money/currency?

  • Comparative measure of stratification at the country level

Global Stratification

• High income countries

  • Mass education urbanization: technologically advanced

  • 15% of global pop

• Middle income countries

  • Urbanization and industrializing, but lag behind high income countries; lacks total mass education

  • More than 70% of global pop

• Low income countries

  • Large populations, agricultural industry, no stable middle class

  • Urbanizing, but residents lack access to jobs, services, and resources

  • Prevalence of hunger, malnutrition, and preventable disease; lack of educational and health resources

Health and global poverty

• More than 50% world pop cannot access essential health services

• 90% of households incurring healthcare related debt already living below the poverty line

• Overcrowding, lack of sanitation and clean water all  contribute to infectious and airborne disease spread

  • HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis-- most prevalent in countries with high poverty levels

  • "diseases of poverty" -- 14 million death s annually

• Nutrition

• 10% of global pop is undernourished

  • 45% of deaths among children under age 5 linked to undernutrition

  • 2017, 11 million deaths due to dietary  risk

• Maternal health

  • Life expectancy positively correlated with GDP per capita

  • Infant mortality rate: number of deaths under age 1 per 1,000 live births

  • 98% of maternal and neonatal deaths occur in developing countries

    • Low birth weight, malnutrition, infectious disease