posts: 46500

This table contains the full text for all our old WORDPRESS content in html form. The format is a bit odd as it represents a direct copy from wordpress content that includes a lot of wordpress specific comments that carry some meaning in terms of layout instructions etc.. The html in the content column can thus be rendered as is but will not look identical to the way it looks on our website as several post processing steps are not applied yet. The content should work though as a readable approximation for every post. For easy searching etc, a markdown copy of the content is available in the markdown column. If you want to query all posts (both wordpress and gdocs), use the posts_unified table or the posts_unified_with_content view.

Data license: CC-BY

This data as json

id	title	slug	type	status	content	archieml	archieml_update_statistics	published_at	updated_at	gdocSuccessorId	authors	excerpt	created_at_in_wordpress	updated_at_in_wordpress	featured_image	formattingOptions	markdown	wpApiSnapshot
46500	Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are	global-economic-inequality-introduction	post	publish	<!-- wp:html --> <div class="blog-info"> <p>Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems.<br>This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on <strong><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Economic Inequality</a></strong>.</p> </div> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 53780 --> <!-- wp:owid/help --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- /wp:owid/help --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but <em>where</em> you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone’s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The huge majority of the world is <em>very</em> poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line">corresponds to</a> the poverty lines set in high-income countries).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":47104,"sizeSlug":"full","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png" alt="" class="wp-image-47104"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Inequality can be very high within countries, the US – a high-income country with <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA">extraordinary large</a> inequality – is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality <em>between</em> countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":46503,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46503"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The large <em>economic</em> inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in <em>many</em> ways.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth">measuring</a> the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The inequality of people’s living conditions mirrors the world’s economic inequality. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is <em>30 years</em> shorter than in the richest countries. I have also <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning">just written</a> about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:image {"id":46505,"sizeSlug":"full","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-–-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46505"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but <em>where </em>a person is.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today’s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line">my post on Global poverty in an unequal world</a>.{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines <em>everything</em>. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":46504,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46504"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Beyond just two countries, how much does a person’s home country matter for where they are in today’s global income distribution?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains <em>two-thirds</em> of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) – “Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?”, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA">https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA<br></a>He wrote a summary on VoxEU <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship">https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship</a>{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For a variety of reasons – from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration – very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration">97%</a>] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>All of this is not to say that a person’s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Where you live isn’t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it’s more important than everything else <em>put together</em>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world: </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>the extent of global economic inequality is vast; </li><li>economic prosperity is immensely important for people’s living conditions; </li><li>and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What can we take away from these three insights?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Redistribution</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Redistribution through the state <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies">plays a large role</a> in reducing inequality <em>within</em> countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share">this map</a> of Net ODA as a share of the donor country’s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries <a href="http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/">can</a> improve the situation in the world’s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/">GiveDirectly</a> makes this possible. Or you can donate to an <em>effective</em> charity that supports the world’s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely – some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><a href="https://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a> is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The way that I donate is via <a href="https://funds.effectivealtruism.org">Effective Altruism Funds</a>. They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the <a href="https://funds.effectivealtruism.org">Effective Altruism Funds</a> to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Economic growth</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed">is <em>far</em> too poor</a> to end poverty without large growth.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed">‘How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?’</a>{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods">was extremely poor</a>. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Since then some countries have achieved very large growth – Swedes are for example about <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE"><em>30-times</em> richer</a> than two centuries ago – while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To take one concrete example, let’s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality">has declined 300-fold</a> in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality">295,000 mothers die</a> just in that moment when they give life to their child.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world’s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the world’s richest countries the Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR">Source</a>]</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL">Source</a>].</li><li>This means there are (100,000/211)295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.</li><li>If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.</li><li>[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":46501,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46501"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Conclusion</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person’s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not – but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:separator --> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <!-- /wp:separator --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Continue reading on Our World in Data:</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed","className":"is-style-thin"} /--> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Acknowledgements:</strong> I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->	{ "id": "wp-46500", "slug": "global-economic-inequality-introduction", "content": { "toc": [], "body": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world\u2019s largest problems.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality", "children": [ { "text": "Global Economic Inequality", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "", "description": "Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality", "description": "", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "where", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone\u2019s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The huge majority of the world is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "very", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line", "children": [ { "text": "corresponds to", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " the poverty lines set in high-income countries).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "linear-axis_global-distribution.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Inequality can be very high within countries, the US \u2013 a high-income country with ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA", "children": [ { "text": "extraordinary large", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " inequality \u2013 is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "between", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The large ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "economic", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "many", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " ways.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth", "children": [ { "text": "measuring", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The inequality of people\u2019s living conditions mirrors the world\u2019s economic inequality.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "30 years", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " shorter than in the richest countries. I have also ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning", "children": [ { "text": "just written", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "where ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "a person is.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today\u2019s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line", "children": [ { "text": "my post on Global poverty in an unequal world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "everything", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Beyond just two countries, how much does a person\u2019s home country matter for where they are in today\u2019s global income distribution?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "two-thirds", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) \u2013 \u201cGlobal Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?\u201d, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA", "children": [ { "text": "https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "He wrote a summary on VoxEU ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship", "children": [ { "text": "https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For a variety of reasons \u2013 from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration \u2013 very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration", "children": [ { "text": "97%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "All of this is not to say that a person\u2019s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Where you live isn\u2019t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it\u2019s more important than everything else ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "put together", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world:\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "the extent of global economic inequality is vast;\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "economic prosperity is immensely important for people\u2019s living conditions;\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What can we take away from these three insights?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Redistribution", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Redistribution through the state ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies", "children": [ { "text": "plays a large role", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " in reducing inequality ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "within", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share", "children": [ { "text": "this map", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " of Net ODA as a share of the donor country\u2019s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/", "children": [ { "text": "can", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " improve the situation in the world\u2019s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.givedirectly.org/", "children": [ { "text": "GiveDirectly", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " makes this possible. Or you can donate to an ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "effective", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " charity that supports the world\u2019s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely \u2013 some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "url": "https://www.givewell.org/", "children": [ { "text": "GiveWell", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The way that I donate is via ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://funds.effectivealtruism.org", "children": [ { "text": "Effective Altruism Funds", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://funds.effectivealtruism.org", "children": [ { "text": "Effective Altruism Funds", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Economic growth", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed", "children": [ { "text": "is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "far", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " too poor", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " to end poverty without large growth.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed", "children": [ { "text": "\u2018How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?\u2019", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref}\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods", "children": [ { "text": "was extremely poor", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Since then some countries have achieved very large growth \u2013 Swedes are for example about ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "30-times", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " richer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " than two centuries ago \u2013 while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To take one concrete example, let\u2019s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality", "children": [ { "text": "has declined 300-fold", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality", "children": [ { "text": "295,000 mothers die", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " just in that moment when they give life to their child.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world\u2019s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the world\u2019s richest countries the \u200b\u200bMaternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR", "children": [ { "text": "Source", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "]", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL", "children": [ { "text": "Source", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "].", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This means there are (100,000/211)295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Conclusion", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person\u2019s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not \u2013 but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Continue reading on Our World in Data:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "", "description": "", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Acknowledgements:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "article", "title": "Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are", "authors": [ "Max Roser" ], "excerpt": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?", "dateline": "December 9, 2021", "subtitle": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?", "sidebar-toc": false, "featured-image": "Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06.png" }, "createdAt": "2021-11-27T12:02:24.000Z", "published": false, "updatedAt": "2023-04-06T17:40:25.000Z", "revisionId": null, "publishedAt": "2021-12-09T11:30:00.000Z", "relatedCharts": [], "publicationContext": "listed" }	{ "errors": [ { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/help" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unhandled html tag found", "details": "Encountered the unhandled tag hr" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag separator" } ], "numBlocks": 65, "numErrors": 10, "wpTagCounts": { "html": 2, "list": 2, "image": 5, "column": 10, "columns": 5, "heading": 7, "owid/help": 1, "paragraph": 48, "separator": 1, "owid/prominent-link": 3 }, "htmlTagCounts": { "p": 49, "h4": 7, "hr": 1, "ul": 2, "div": 16, "figure": 5, "iframe": 1 } }	2021-12-09 11:30:00	2024-02-16 14:22:52	15du6zm00Ll6DtJWlhu4o_lZgb72RKFyd43tflYSKIVA	[ "Max Roser" ]	How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?	2021-11-27 12:02:24	2023-04-06 17:40:25	https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06.png	{}	Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on [Global Economic Inequality](https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality). ## The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$. The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices). This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures. ### Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line ### Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but _where_ you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone’s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not. Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living. The huge majority of the world is _very_ poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day. If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly [corresponds to](https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line) the poverty lines set in high-income countries). <Image filename="linear-axis_global-distribution.png" alt=""/> Inequality can be very high within countries, the US – a high-income country with [extraordinary large](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA) inequality – is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality _between_ countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi. <Image filename="Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018.png" alt=""/> ## Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions The large _economic_ inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about. But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in _many_ ways. The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions. On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, [measuring](https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth) the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives. The inequality of people’s living conditions mirrors the world’s economic inequality. It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is _30 years_ shorter than in the richest countries. I have also [just written](https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning) about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension. <Image filename="Correlates-of-GDP-–-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png" alt=""/> ## Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but _where _a person is. To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution. In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today’s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in [my post on Global poverty in an unequal world](https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line).{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines _everything_. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that. <Image filename="simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018.png" alt=""/> Beyond just two countries, how much does a person’s home country matter for where they are in today’s global income distribution? Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains _two-thirds_ of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) – “Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?”, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: [https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA ](https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA)He wrote a summary on VoxEU [https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship](https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship){/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income. For a variety of reasons – from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration – very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [[97%](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration)] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in. All of this is not to say that a person’s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not. Where you live isn’t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it’s more important than everything else _put together_. ## The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world: * the extent of global economic inequality is vast; * economic prosperity is immensely important for people’s living conditions; * and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control. What can we take away from these three insights? ## Redistribution Redistribution through the state [plays a large role](https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies) in reducing inequality _within_ countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See [this map](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share) of Net ODA as a share of the donor country’s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries [can](http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/) improve the situation in the world’s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution. If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money. You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person. The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization [GiveDirectly](https://www.givedirectly.org/) makes this possible. Or you can donate to an _effective_ charity that supports the world’s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely – some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way. [GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/) is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations. Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend. The way that I donate is via [Effective Altruism Funds](https://funds.effectivealtruism.org). They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the [Effective Altruism Funds](https://funds.effectivealtruism.org) to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref} ## Economic growth Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world [is _far_ too poor](https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed) to end poverty without large growth. To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post [‘How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?’](https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed){/ref} We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people [was extremely poor](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods). Since then some countries have achieved very large growth – Swedes are for example about [_30-times_ richer](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE) than two centuries ago – while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today. The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart"/> Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all. To take one concrete example, let’s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death [has declined 300-fold](https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality) in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year [295,000 mothers die](https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality) just in that moment when they give life to their child. What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world’s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold). In the world’s richest countries the Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [[Source](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR)] * Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [[Source](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL)]. * This means there are (100,000/211)295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year. If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)2=2,796 Deaths of mothers. [Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796] Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref} <Image filename="Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality.png" alt=""/> We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago. ## Conclusion What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person’s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not – but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not. What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all. _Continue reading on Our World in Data:_ ### https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed Acknowledgements: I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.	{ "id": 46500, "date": "2021-12-09T11:30:00", "guid": { "rendered": "https://owid.cloud/?p=46500" }, "link": "https://owid.cloud/global-economic-inequality-introduction", "meta": { "owid_publication_context_meta_field": { "latest": true, "homepage": true, "immediate_newsletter": true } }, "slug": "global-economic-inequality-introduction", "tags": [], "type": "post", "title": { "rendered": "Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are" }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post" } ], "author": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2", "embeddable": true } ], "curies": [ { "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}", "name": "wp", "templated": true } ], "replies": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=46500", "embeddable": true } ], "wp:term": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=46500", "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true }, { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=46500", "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=46500" } ], "version-history": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500/revisions", "count": 23 } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/46508", "embeddable": true } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 56633, "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500/revisions/56633" } ] }, "author": 2, "format": "standard", "status": "publish", "sticky": false, "content": { "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">\n<p>Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world\u2019s largest problems.<br>This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on <strong><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Global Economic Inequality</a></strong>.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\t<block type=\"help\">\n\t\t<content>\n\n<h4>The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank’s poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.</p>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line</link-url>\n <title></title>\n <content>\n\n<p>Read more about the World Bank’s updated methodology</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block>\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer</link-url>\n <title>Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality</title>\n <content>\n\n<p></p>\n\n</content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block>\n</content>\n\t</block>\n\n\n<p>What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but <em>where</em> you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone\u2019s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The huge majority of the world is <em>very</em> poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line\">corresponds to</a> the poverty lines set in high-income countries).</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2332\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-47104\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png 2332w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-400x343.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-641x550.png 641w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-150x129.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-768x659.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-1536x1317.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-2048x1756.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2332px) 100vw, 2332px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Inequality can be very high within countries, the US \u2013 a high-income country with <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA\">extraordinary large</a> inequality \u2013 is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality <em>between</em> countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"139\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46503\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-400x70.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-150x26.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-768x134.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-1536x268.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-2048x357.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h4>Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The large <em>economic</em> inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in <em>many</em> ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth\">measuring</a> the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The inequality of people\u2019s living conditions mirrors the world\u2019s economic inequality. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is <em>30 years</em> shorter than in the richest countries. I have also <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning\">just written</a> about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"1818\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46505\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png 3000w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-400x242.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-800x485.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-150x91.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-768x465.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-1536x931.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-2048x1241.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<h4>Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but <em>where </em>a person is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today\u2019s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line\">my post on Global poverty in an unequal world</a>.{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines <em>everything</em>. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don’t overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"125\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46504\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-400x62.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-150x23.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-768x120.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-1536x239.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-2048x319.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond just two countries, how much does a person\u2019s home country matter for where they are in today\u2019s global income distribution?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains <em>two-thirds</em> of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) \u2013 \u201cGlobal Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?\u201d, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: <a href=\"https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA\">https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA<br></a>He wrote a summary on VoxEU <a href=\"https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship\">https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship</a>{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a variety of reasons \u2013 from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration \u2013 very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration\">97%</a>] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this is not to say that a person\u2019s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where you live isn\u2019t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it\u2019s more important than everything else <em>put together</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>the extent of global economic inequality is vast; </li><li>economic prosperity is immensely important for people\u2019s living conditions; </li><li>and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What can we take away from these three insights?</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Redistribution</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Redistribution through the state <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies\">plays a large role</a> in reducing inequality <em>within</em> countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world’s poor people.{ref}See <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share\">this map</a> of Net ODA as a share of the donor country\u2019s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries <a href=\"http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/\">can</a> improve the situation in the world\u2019s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization <a href=\"https://www.givedirectly.org/\">GiveDirectly</a> makes this possible. Or you can donate to an <em>effective</em> charity that supports the world\u2019s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely \u2013 some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.givewell.org/\">GiveWell</a> is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I’d recommend.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way that I donate is via <a href=\"https://funds.effectivealtruism.org\">Effective Altruism Funds</a>. They also rely on Givewell’s research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the <a href=\"https://funds.effectivealtruism.org\">Effective Altruism Funds</a> to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the ‘Fund’ with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Economic growth</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed\">is <em>far</em> too poor</a> to end poverty without large growth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed\">\u2018How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?\u2019</a>{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods\">was extremely poor</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then some countries have achieved very large growth \u2013 Swedes are for example about <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE\"><em>30-times</em> richer</a> than two centuries ago \u2013 while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reality of today’s global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To take one concrete example, let\u2019s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality\">has declined 300-fold</a> in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality\">295,000 mothers die</a> just in that moment when they give life to their child.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world\u2019s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the world\u2019s richest countries the \u200b\u200bMaternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR\">Source</a>]</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL\">Source</a>].</li><li>This means there are (100,000/211)295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.</li><li>If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.</li><li>[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"165\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46501\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-400x82.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-150x31.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-768x158.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-1536x316.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-2048x422.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Conclusion</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person\u2019s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not \u2013 but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Continue reading on Our World in Data:</em></p>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed</link-url>\n <title></title>\n <content></content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<p><strong>Acknowledgements:</strong> I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.</p>\n", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?", "protected": false }, "date_gmt": "2021-12-09T11:30:00", "modified": "2023-04-06T18:40:25", "template": "", "categories": [ 51, 190, 1 ], "ping_status": "closed", "authors_name": [ "Max Roser" ], "modified_gmt": "2023-04-06T17:40:25", "comment_status": "closed", "featured_media": 46508, "featured_media_paths": { "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06-150x61.png", "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06-768x315.png" } }

title

slug

type

status

content

archieml

archieml_update_statistics

published_at

updated_at

gdocSuccessorId

authors

excerpt

created_at_in_wordpress

updated_at_in_wordpress

featured_image

formattingOptions

markdown

wpApiSnapshot

46500

Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are

global-economic-inequality-introduction

post

publish

<div class="blog-info"> <p>Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems.<br>This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on <strong><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Economic Inequality</a></strong>.</p> </div>     <h4>The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data</h4>   <p>The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.</p>   <p>The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).</p>   <p>This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.</p>    <p>Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology</p>     <p></p>     <p>What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but <em>where</em> you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone’s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.</p>   <p>Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.</p>   <p>The huge majority of the world is <em>very</em> poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.</p>   <p>If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line">corresponds to</a> the poverty lines set in high-income countries).</p>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png" alt="" class="wp-image-47104"/></figure> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <p>Inequality can be very high within countries, the US – a high-income country with <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA">extraordinary large</a> inequality – is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality <em>between</em> countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.</p>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46503"/></figure> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <h4>Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions</h4>   <p>The large <em>economic</em> inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about. </p>   <p>But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in <em>many</em> ways.</p>   <p>The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.</p>   <p>On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth">measuring</a> the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.</p>   <p>The inequality of people’s living conditions mirrors the world’s economic inequality. </p>   <p>It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is <em>30 years</em> shorter than in the richest countries. I have also <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning">just written</a> about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.</p>   <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-–-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46505"/></figure>   <h4>Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are</h4>   <p>Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but <em>where </em>a person is.</p>   <p>To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.</p>   <p>In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today’s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line">my post on Global poverty in an unequal world</a>.{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines <em>everything</em>. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.</p>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46504"/></figure> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <p>Beyond just two countries, how much does a person’s home country matter for where they are in today’s global income distribution?</p>   <p>Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains <em>two-thirds</em> of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) – “Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?”, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA">https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA<br></a>He wrote a summary on VoxEU <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship">https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship</a>{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.</p>   <p>For a variety of reasons – from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration – very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration">97%</a>] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.</p>   <p>All of this is not to say that a person’s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>   <p>Where you live isn’t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it’s more important than everything else <em>put together</em>.</p>   <h4>The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions</h4>   <p>The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world: </p>   <ul><li>the extent of global economic inequality is vast; </li><li>economic prosperity is immensely important for people’s living conditions; </li><li>and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.</li></ul>   <p>What can we take away from these three insights?</p>   <h4>Redistribution</h4>   <p>Redistribution through the state <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies">plays a large role</a> in reducing inequality <em>within</em> countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share">this map</a> of Net ODA as a share of the donor country’s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries <a href="http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/">can</a> improve the situation in the world’s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.</p>   <p>If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.</p>   <p>You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person. </p>   <p>The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/">GiveDirectly</a> makes this possible. Or you can donate to an <em>effective</em> charity that supports the world’s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely – some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.</p>   <p><a href="https://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a> is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.</p>   <p>Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend.</p>   <p>The way that I donate is via <a href="https://funds.effectivealtruism.org">Effective Altruism Funds</a>. They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the <a href="https://funds.effectivealtruism.org">Effective Altruism Funds</a> to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}</p>   <h4>Economic growth</h4>   <p>Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed">is <em>far</em> too poor</a> to end poverty without large growth.</p>   <p>To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed">‘How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?’</a>{/ref} </p>   <p>We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods">was extremely poor</a>. </p>   <p>Since then some countries have achieved very large growth – Swedes are for example about <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE"><em>30-times</em> richer</a> than two centuries ago – while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.</p>   <p>The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.</p>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <p>Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.</p>   <p>To take one concrete example, let’s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality">has declined 300-fold</a> in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality">295,000 mothers die</a> just in that moment when they give life to their child.</p>   <p>What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world’s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).</p>   <p>In the world’s richest countries the Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR">Source</a>]</p>   <ul><li>Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL">Source</a>].</li><li>This means there are (100,000/211)*295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.</li><li>If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)*2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.</li><li>[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]</li></ul>   <p>Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}</p>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46501"/></figure> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <p>We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago. </p>   <h4>Conclusion</h4>   <p>What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person’s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not – but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>   <p>What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.</p>   <hr class="wp-block-separator"/>   <p><em>Continue reading on Our World in Data:</em></p>    <p><strong>Acknowledgements:</strong> I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.</p>

{
    "id": "wp-46500",
    "slug": "global-economic-inequality-introduction",
    "content": {
        "toc": [],
        "body": [
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world\u2019s largest problems.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Global Economic Inequality",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line",
                "type": "prominent-link",
                "title": "",
                "description": "Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer",
                "type": "prominent-link",
                "title": "Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality",
                "description": "",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "where",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone\u2019s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The huge majority of the world is ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "very",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "corresponds to",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " the poverty lines set in high-income countries).",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "linear-axis_global-distribution.png",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Inequality can be very high within countries, the US \u2013 a high-income country with ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "extraordinary large",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " inequality \u2013 is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "between",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018.png",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The large ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "economic",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "many",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " ways.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "measuring",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The inequality of people\u2019s living conditions mirrors the world\u2019s economic inequality.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "30 years",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " shorter than in the richest countries. I have also ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "just written",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "where ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "a person is.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today\u2019s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "my post on Global poverty in an unequal world",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "everything",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018.png",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Beyond just two countries, how much does a person\u2019s home country matter for where they are in today\u2019s global income distribution?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "two-thirds",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) \u2013 \u201cGlobal Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?\u201d, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "spanType": "span-newline"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "He wrote a summary on VoxEU ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "For a variety of reasons \u2013 from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration \u2013 very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "97%",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "All of this is not to say that a person\u2019s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Where you live isn\u2019t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it\u2019s more important than everything else ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "put together",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world:\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "list",
                "items": [
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "the extent of global economic inequality is vast;\u00a0",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "economic prosperity is immensely important for people\u2019s living conditions;\u00a0",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What can we take away from these three insights?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Redistribution",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Redistribution through the state ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "plays a large role",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " in reducing inequality ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "within",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "this map",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " of Net ODA as a share of the donor country\u2019s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "can",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " improve the situation in the world\u2019s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.givedirectly.org/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "GiveDirectly",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " makes this possible. Or you can donate to an ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "effective",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " charity that supports the world\u2019s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely \u2013 some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.givewell.org/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "GiveWell",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The way that I donate is via ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://funds.effectivealtruism.org",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Effective Altruism Funds",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://funds.effectivealtruism.org",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Effective Altruism Funds",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Economic growth",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "is ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "far",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " too poor",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " to end poverty without large growth.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "\u2018How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?\u2019",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "{/ref}\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "was extremely poor",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Since then some countries have achieved very large growth \u2013 Swedes are for example about ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "30-times",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " richer",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " than two centuries ago \u2013 while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart",
                "type": "chart",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "To take one concrete example, let\u2019s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "has declined 300-fold",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "295,000 mothers die",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " just in that moment when they give life to their child.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world\u2019s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In the world\u2019s richest countries the \u200b\u200bMaternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Source",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "]",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "list",
                "items": [
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Source",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "].",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "This means there are (100,000/211)*295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)*2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality.png",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Conclusion",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person\u2019s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not \u2013 but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Continue reading on Our World in Data:",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed",
                "type": "prominent-link",
                "title": "",
                "description": "",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Acknowledgements:",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            }
        ],
        "type": "article",
        "title": "Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are",
        "authors": [
            "Max Roser"
        ],
        "excerpt": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?",
        "dateline": "December 9, 2021",
        "subtitle": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?",
        "sidebar-toc": false,
        "featured-image": "Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06.png"
    },
    "createdAt": "2021-11-27T12:02:24.000Z",
    "published": false,
    "updatedAt": "2023-04-06T17:40:25.000Z",
    "revisionId": null,
    "publishedAt": "2021-12-09T11:30:00.000Z",
    "relatedCharts": [],
    "publicationContext": "listed"
}

{
    "errors": [
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/help"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
        },
        {
            "name": "unhandled html tag found",
            "details": "Encountered the unhandled tag hr"
        },
        {
            "name": "unexpected wp component tag",
            "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag separator"
        }
    ],
    "numBlocks": 65,
    "numErrors": 10,
    "wpTagCounts": {
        "html": 2,
        "list": 2,
        "image": 5,
        "column": 10,
        "columns": 5,
        "heading": 7,
        "owid/help": 1,
        "paragraph": 48,
        "separator": 1,
        "owid/prominent-link": 3
    },
    "htmlTagCounts": {
        "p": 49,
        "h4": 7,
        "hr": 1,
        "ul": 2,
        "div": 16,
        "figure": 5,
        "iframe": 1
    }
}

2021-12-09 11:30:00

2024-02-16 14:22:52

15du6zm00Ll6DtJWlhu4o_lZgb72RKFyd43tflYSKIVA

[
    "Max Roser"
]

How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?

2021-11-27 12:02:24

2023-04-06 17:40:25

https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06.png

{}

Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on **[Global Economic Inequality](https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality)**. ## The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank's poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$. The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices). This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures. ### Read more about the World Bank's updated methodology https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line ### Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but _where_ you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone’s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not. Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living. The huge majority of the world is _very_ poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day. If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly [corresponds to](https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line) the poverty lines set in high-income countries). <Image filename="linear-axis_global-distribution.png" alt=""/> Inequality can be very high within countries, the US – a high-income country with [extraordinary large](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA) inequality – is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality _between_ countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi. <Image filename="Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018.png" alt=""/> ## Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions The large _economic_ inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about. But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in _many_ ways. The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions. On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, [measuring](https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth) the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives. The inequality of people’s living conditions mirrors the world’s economic inequality. It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is _30 years_ shorter than in the richest countries. I have also [just written](https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning) about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension. <Image filename="Correlates-of-GDP-–-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png" alt=""/> ## Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but _where _a person is. To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution. In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today’s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in [my post on Global poverty in an unequal world](https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line).{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines _everything_. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don't overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that. <Image filename="simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018.png" alt=""/> Beyond just two countries, how much does a person’s home country matter for where they are in today’s global income distribution? Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains _two-thirds_ of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) – “Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?”, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: [https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA ](https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA)He wrote a summary on VoxEU [https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship](https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship){/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income. For a variety of reasons – from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration – very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [[97%](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration)] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in. All of this is not to say that a person’s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not. Where you live isn’t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it’s more important than everything else _put together_. ## The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world: * the extent of global economic inequality is vast; * economic prosperity is immensely important for people’s living conditions; * and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control. What can we take away from these three insights? ## Redistribution Redistribution through the state [plays a large role](https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies) in reducing inequality _within_ countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world's poor people.{ref}See [this map](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share) of Net ODA as a share of the donor country’s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries [can](http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/) improve the situation in the world’s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution. If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money. You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person. The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization [GiveDirectly](https://www.givedirectly.org/) makes this possible. Or you can donate to an _effective_ charity that supports the world’s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely – some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way. [GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/) is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations. Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I'd recommend. The way that I donate is via [Effective Altruism Funds](https://funds.effectivealtruism.org). They also rely on Givewell's research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the [Effective Altruism Funds](https://funds.effectivealtruism.org) to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the 'Fund' with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref} ## Economic growth Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world [is _far_ too poor](https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed) to end poverty without large growth. To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post [‘How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?’](https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed){/ref} We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people [was extremely poor](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods). Since then some countries have achieved very large growth – Swedes are for example about [_30-times_ richer](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&country=~SWE) than two centuries ago – while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today. The reality of today's global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart"/> Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all. To take one concrete example, let’s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death [has declined 300-fold](https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality) in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year [295,000 mothers die](https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality) just in that moment when they give life to their child. What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world’s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold). In the world’s richest countries the Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [[Source](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&time=2017..latest&country=OWID_WRL~NOR)] * Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [[Source](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&time=latest&country=~OWID_WRL)]. * This means there are (100,000/211)*295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year. * If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)*2=2,796 Deaths of mothers. * [Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796] Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world’s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref} <Image filename="Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality.png" alt=""/> We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago. ## Conclusion What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person’s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not – but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person’s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not. What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all. _Continue reading on Our World in Data:_ ### https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed **Acknowledgements:** I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.

{
    "id": 46500,
    "date": "2021-12-09T11:30:00",
    "guid": {
        "rendered": "https://owid.cloud/?p=46500"
    },
    "link": "https://owid.cloud/global-economic-inequality-introduction",
    "meta": {
        "owid_publication_context_meta_field": {
            "latest": true,
            "homepage": true,
            "immediate_newsletter": true
        }
    },
    "slug": "global-economic-inequality-introduction",
    "tags": [],
    "type": "post",
    "title": {
        "rendered": "Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are"
    },
    "_links": {
        "self": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500"
            }
        ],
        "about": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"
            }
        ],
        "author": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2",
                "embeddable": true
            }
        ],
        "curies": [
            {
                "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}",
                "name": "wp",
                "templated": true
            }
        ],
        "replies": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=46500",
                "embeddable": true
            }
        ],
        "wp:term": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=46500",
                "taxonomy": "category",
                "embeddable": true
            },
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=46500",
                "taxonomy": "post_tag",
                "embeddable": true
            }
        ],
        "collection": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"
            }
        ],
        "wp:attachment": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=46500"
            }
        ],
        "version-history": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500/revisions",
                "count": 23
            }
        ],
        "wp:featuredmedia": [
            {
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/46508",
                "embeddable": true
            }
        ],
        "predecessor-version": [
            {
                "id": 56633,
                "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/46500/revisions/56633"
            }
        ]
    },
    "author": 2,
    "format": "standard",
    "status": "publish",
    "sticky": false,
    "content": {
        "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">\n<p>Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world\u2019s largest problems.<br>This article draws on data and research discussed in our entry on <strong><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Global Economic Inequality</a></strong>.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\t<block type=\"help\">\n\t\t<content>\n\n<h4>The World Bank has updated its poverty and inequality data</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank&#8217;s poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures.</p>\n\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line</link-url>\n        <title></title>\n        <content>\n\n<p>Read more about the World Bank&#8217;s updated methodology</p>\n\n</content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block>\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer</link-url>\n        <title>Explore the latest World Bank data on poverty and inequality</title>\n        <content>\n\n<p></p>\n\n</content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block>\n</content>\n\t</block>\n\n\n<p>What is most important for how healthy, wealthy, and educated you are is not who you are, but <em>where</em> you are. Your knowledge and how hard you work matter too, but much less than the one factor that is entirely outside anyone\u2019s control: whether you happen to be born into a productive, industrialized economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global income inequality is vast. The chart shows this. As all data throughout this text it takes into account the differences in the cost of living.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The huge majority of the world is <em>very</em> poor. The poorer half of the world, almost 4 billion people, live on less than $6.70 a day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you live on $30 a day you are part of the richest 15% of the world ($30 a day roughly <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line\">corresponds to</a> the poverty lines set in high-income countries).</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2332\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-47104\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution.png 2332w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-400x343.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-641x550.png 641w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-150x129.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-768x659.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-1536x1317.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/12/linear-axis_global-distribution-2048x1756.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2332px) 100vw, 2332px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Inequality can be very high within countries, the US \u2013 a high-income country with <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=~USA\">extraordinary large</a> inequality \u2013 is a prime example of this. But much of global inequality is inequality <em>between</em> countries. The small chart shows this by comparing the income distribution of the US with the distribution in Burundi.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"139\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46503\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-800x139.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-400x70.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-150x26.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-768x134.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-1536x268.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-US-vs-Burundi-2018-2048x357.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h4>Vast economic inequality means vast inequalities in living conditions</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The large <em>economic</em> inequality is only one dimension of global inequality. There are many other aspects that people care about.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But because a high income is so important for good living conditions these other inequalities map onto the economic inequality. Those who live on higher incomes have advantages in <em>many</em> ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows what life is like on different income levels in 12 different dimensions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the horizontal axis in each panel you see GDP per capita, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth\">measuring</a> the average income in a country. Starting from the top left these panels show that where incomes are higher people live longer, children die less often, mothers die less often, doctors can focus on fewer patients, people have better access to clean drinking water and electricity, they can travel more, have more free time, have better access to education and better learning outcomes, and people are more satisfied with their lives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The inequality of people\u2019s living conditions mirrors the world\u2019s economic inequality.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is hard to overstate how very large these differences are. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is <em>30 years</em> shorter than in the richest countries. I have also <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning\">just written</a> about the very large global inequalities in learning outcomes along the economic dimension.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"1818\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46505\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income.png 3000w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-400x242.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-800x485.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-150x91.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-768x465.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-1536x931.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Correlates-of-GDP-\u2013-How-is-life-at-different-levels-of-income-2048x1241.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<h4>Where a person finds themselves in the extremely unequal global income distribution is mostly determined by where they are</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeing how much our living conditions depend on the productivity of the economy we live in should matter hugely for our own self-understanding and our view of others. In a world of such vast inequalities between countries it is not who a person is that determines whether they are well-off or poor, but <em>where </em>a person is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To see this, consider a world without any inequality between countries. If all countries were equally rich, where someone would live would not matter at all for where someone ends up in the global income distribution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast, consider a situation of extreme inequality between countries, such as today\u2019s inequality between a poor and rich country.{ref}I have written a detailed description of this chart and the shown data in <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/higher-poverty-global-line\">my post on Global poverty in an unequal world</a>.{/ref} In this case the home country of a person determines <em>everything</em>. The shown data for Ethiopia and Denmark makes this clear: the two distributions basically don&#8217;t overlap at all, a person born in Denmark has almost certainly an income above the global average, someone born in Ethiopia has almost certainly an income lower than that.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"125\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46504\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-800x125.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-400x62.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-150x23.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-768x120.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-1536x239.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/simple-Incomes-poor-and-rich-country-Ethiopia-vs-Denmark-2018-2048x319.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond just two countries, how much does a person\u2019s home country matter for where they are in today\u2019s global income distribution?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inequality researcher Branko Milanovic studied this question and found that the country where a person lives explains <em>two-thirds</em> of the variation of income differences between all people in the world.{ref}Branko Milanovic (2015) \u2013 \u201cGlobal Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined By Where We Live?\u201d, The Review of Economics and Statistics 97(2): 452-460. Online here: <a href=\"https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA\">https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.VKCF2CcA<br></a>He wrote a summary on VoxEU <a href=\"https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship\">https://voxeu.org/article/income-inequality-and-citizenship</a>{/ref} Where a person lives is the most important factor of their income.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a variety of reasons \u2013 from family ties to the political restrictions that impede migration \u2013 very few people move between countries. The vast majority of the world population [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration\">97%</a>] live in the country they were born in. And so for most people in the world, it is not only the country they live in that determines their income, but it is the country they were born in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this is not to say that a person\u2019s work ethic, talent, and skills do not matter for their income. They do. But it is to say that all these personal factors together matter much less than the factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they are born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where you live isn\u2019t just more important than all your personal characteristics, it\u2019s more important than everything else <em>put together</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>The importance of redistribution and economic growth for reducing global inequality and better living conditions</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The data I discussed highlights three important facts about our world:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>the extent of global economic inequality is vast;&nbsp;</li><li>economic prosperity is immensely important for people\u2019s living conditions;&nbsp;</li><li>and where a person finds themselves in the unequal global income distribution is largely outside of their control.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What can we take away from these three insights?</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Redistribution</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Redistribution through the state <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#redistribution-through-tax-and-transfer-policies\">plays a large role</a> in reducing inequality <em>within</em> countries and could also reduce global inequality. However, the reality is that, no matter in which rich country you pay your taxes, almost none of that goes to the world&#8217;s poor people.{ref}See <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/official-development-assistance-gni-share\">this map</a> of Net ODA as a share of the donor country\u2019s GNI. Few countries reach the goal of 0.7% of national income which means that the share of taxes paid on ODA is extremely small. I think it should be higher, development aid is one way in which the populations of the richest countries <a href=\"http://millionssaved.cgdev.org/\">can</a> improve the situation in the world\u2019s poorest places.{/ref} The redistribution that governments do is not reaching the poorest people: it is domestic not international redistribution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do however have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might be able to live on a little less and this money could make a big difference to a poorer person.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most direct way is to send some of your money directly to very poor people, the non-profit organization <a href=\"https://www.givedirectly.org/\">GiveDirectly</a> makes this possible. Or you can donate to an <em>effective</em> charity that supports the world\u2019s poorest. At the footnote you find out how to find such a charity and how I donate.{ref}One of the most important things to know about charities is that their impact varies hugely \u2013 some are not effective or even do more harm than good, while others are able to do extremely good work on a large problem in a very cost effective way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.givewell.org/\">GiveWell</a> is a research team that finds the charities that make the biggest difference per each dollar or euro that you donate. On their site you find their recommended charities and their very transparent and in-depth research of how they arrived at these recommendations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giving via Givewell is one way to donate that I&#8217;d recommend.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way that I donate is via <a href=\"https://funds.effectivealtruism.org\">Effective Altruism Funds</a>. They also rely on Givewell&#8217;s research, but they also focus on other areas. As a donor you can set your priorities between these different areas, but beyond that you trust the team of the <a href=\"https://funds.effectivealtruism.org\">Effective Altruism Funds</a> to make decisions for you. This has the advantage that their team has more knowledge about the various effective charities than you or I can possibly know, which gives them the chance to give to those charities that have the greatest potential and need at a particular time. I pay into the &#8216;Fund&#8217; with a recurring transfer every month.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Economic growth</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some suggest we can end poverty without additional growth by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. Reducing global inequality can achieve a lot, but it is important to be clear that redistribution alone would still mean that billions of people would live in very poor material conditions. The world <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed\">is <em>far</em> too poor</a> to end poverty without large growth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To achieve a more equal world without poverty the world needs very large economic growth.{ref}For the evidence on this see my post <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed\">\u2018How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?\u2019</a>{/ref}&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can see this when we look at our global history. Two centuries ago the world was much more equal: Average income, measured with GDP per capita in the chart, was low everywhere and the huge majority of people <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods\">was extremely poor</a>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then some countries have achieved very large growth \u2013 Swedes are for example about <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?time=1820..2018&amp;country=~SWE\"><em>30-times</em> richer</a> than two centuries ago \u2013 while other economies hardly grew at all. This unequal development resulted in the extremely large global inequality of today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reality of today&#8217;s global inequality is cruel. Those who are born into an economy that achieved large growth in the last two centuries grow up in much better living conditions than those who happen to be born into a poor economy. Economic growth for billions of people in poverty is what we need to end this injustice.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020?tab=chart\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Those places that have achieved large growth show how much better the living conditions can be for all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To take one concrete example, let\u2019s consider maternal mortality. In high-income countries, where mothers can rely on well-equipped hospitals and support from doctors and midwives when complications occur, maternal deaths have become rare (the risk of death <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/measurement-matters-the-decline-of-maternal-mortality\">has declined 300-fold</a> in the last generations). But in the rest of the world it is still very common: every year <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality\">295,000 mothers die</a> just in that moment when they give life to their child.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What would the world look like if the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries? The huge majority of mothers who die this year would survive.{ref}In the world\u2019s richest countries the MMR is more than 100-fold lower than the global average (211/2=105.5-fold).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the world\u2019s richest countries the \u200b\u200bMaternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is 2, worldwide it is 211. [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality-rate-per-100000-live-births-around-the-world?tab=chart&amp;time=2017..latest&amp;country=OWID_WRL~NOR\">Source</a>]</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Worldwide 295,000 mothers die every year. [<a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-maternal-deaths?tab=chart&amp;time=latest&amp;country=~OWID_WRL\">Source</a>].</li><li>This means there are (100,000/211)*295,000 =139,810,426 Births every year.</li><li>If the global MMR was 2 rather than 211 per 100,000 then this would result in (139,810,426/100,000)*2=2,796 Deaths of mothers.</li><li>[Or a simpler calculation of the same: 295,000/(211/2)=2,796]</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Every year 295,000 mothers die in childbirth. If the risk of death for mothers was globally as low as in the world\u2019s richest countries 2,800 mothers would die. 292,200 mothers would not die.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"165\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46501\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-800x165.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-400x82.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-150x31.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-768x158.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-1536x316.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/11/Rich-country-living-conditions-globally-maternal-mortality-2048x422.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>We know that this is possible. This is what the historical perspective makes clear; all places that have good living conditions today were extremely poor until just a few generations ago.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Conclusion</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>What we have seen in the data here is one of the most important insights of development economics: people live in poverty not because of who they are, but because of where they are. A person\u2019s knowledge, their skills, and how hard they work all matter for whether they are poor or not \u2013 but all these personal factors together matter less than the one factor that is entirely outside of a person\u2019s control: whether they happen to be born into a large, productive economy or not.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What gives people the chance for a good life is when the entire society and economy around them changes for the better. This is what development and economic growth are about: transforming a place so that what was previously only attainable for a few comes into reach for all.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Continue reading on Our World in Data:</em></p>\n\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-minimum-growth-needed</link-url>\n        <title></title>\n        <content></content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block>\n\n\n<p><strong>Acknowledgements:</strong> I want to thank Joe Hasell and Toby Ord for their feedback on this article and visualizations.</p>\n",
        "protected": false
    },
    "excerpt": {
        "rendered": "How much does it matter whether or not you are born into a productive, industrialized economy?",
        "protected": false
    },
    "date_gmt": "2021-12-09T11:30:00",
    "modified": "2023-04-06T18:40:25",
    "template": "",
    "categories": [
        51,
        190,
        1
    ],
    "ping_status": "closed",
    "authors_name": [
        "Max Roser"
    ],
    "modified_gmt": "2023-04-06T17:40:25",
    "comment_status": "closed",
    "featured_media": 46508,
    "featured_media_paths": {
        "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06-150x61.png",
        "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-27-at-12.08.06-768x315.png"
    }
}

Links from other tables

0 rows from post_id in post_tags
27 rows from sourceId in posts_links
0 rows from wordpressId in posts_unified
32 rows from postId in post_links
6 rows from postId in post_charts
0 rows from postId in post_broken_chart_links