Transcript Inequality
Inequality
The “Haves” and the “Have Nots”
Course Themes
Inequality
– Crime
Corporate Crime
– Health Issues
– War and Conflict
– Race / Ethnicity
– Gender and Sexuality Issues
– Education
– Environment
Life Expectancy
Falling child death
rates
Access to water and
sanitation
Immunizations
More improvement
Literacy rates increasing from 70-76% since 1995.
Civil wars ended through negotiations with UN.
More democracies.
– Public protests to reduce corruption and increase
democracy.
Human
Development
Index
HDI includes
– Income
– Education
– Health
HDI rising except for
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Includes most of
Africa, south of the
Saharan desert.
As a result of
colonization and
exploitation, is one of
the poorest
geographical regions
in the world.
Is the news all good?
How bad is it really?
Let’s create a seating chart based on the
distribution of wealth in the world.
If I were to distribute the chairs based on
wealth distribution, this is what it would
look like.
Distribution of Wealth
The top 1% holds
40% of the wealth.
The top 10% holds
85% of the wealth.
The bottom 50% holds
1% of the wealth.
How do you feel?
How do you think this affects people around the world?
– Although North America (US and Canada) has only 6% of the
world adult population, it accounts for 34% of household
wealth.
– The study estimates that the global wealth Gini for adults
is 89%.
The same degree of inequality would be obtained if one person in
a group of ten takes 99% of the total pie and the other nine share
the remaining 1%.
Declining HDI
Sub-Saharan Africa
Former Soviet Union
Global Inequality
Income inequality (of about 6.5 billion)
– 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day.
– 1.5 billion more live on less than $2 a day.
Water and sanitation
– 1 billion lack access to safe water.
– 2.6 billion lack access to adequate sanitation.
Malnutrition
– 850 million people are malnourished
Women and Children
More than 10 million children die each year
before their fifth birthday.
An estimated 530,000 women die each year
in pregnancy or childbirth.
Simple interventions could prevent the
majority of these deaths.
Convergence and Divergence
China and India have improved in many
aspects.
Sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet
Union nations have moved backwards.
South Asia, the Middle East and Latin
America have virtually stayed the same.
Overall
The gap between the rich and poor nations are
getting wider.
Most poor (developing) nations are falling behind.
Something as simple as lifting people above the $1
a day line would only take 2% of the income of
the wealthiest 10% of the population!
Coming Up
Where does this inequality come from?
A look at the fall of the former Soviet
Union.
What is life like for people working in poor
nations to produce our goods?