By Jan Lundius STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 16 2021 (IPS) – Inequality characterizes the world we live in, predisposing how we act and think. We perceive our existence as composed of dichotomies – men and women, young and old, black…
Tag: inequality
Inequality Is Not Inevitable
By Joseph E. Stiglitz An insidious trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in…
Equal pay must for a world of dignity, justice for all: UN
The United Nations is marking the first-ever International Equal Pay Day on Friday drawing attention to the gender pay gap and the systemic inequalities it is rooted in.
Gender inequality increases in media during pandemic: IFJ study
Brussels, AP/UNB, July 23 – A survey published by International Federation of Journalists showed that gender inequalities in newsrooms have increased during the coronavirus pandemic.
Workers protest racial inequality in US
Workers from the different professions rallied with organised labour on Monday to protest systemic racism and economic inequality.
‘New social contract, global deal must to tackle inequality’
Xinhua/UNB, July 19 – Noting that Covid-19 is a human tragedy, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday called for a New Social Contract and a New Global Deal to address inequality across the world.
Meritocracy Legitimises, Deepens Inequality
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 18 2020 (IPS) – How often have you heard someone lamenting or even condemning inequality in society, concluding with an appeal to meritocracy? We like to think that if only the deserving,…
Govt spending must target inequalities, not bail out riches
Geneva, 17 Apr (Kanaga Raja) – States need to invest massively in decreasing inequalities and poverty arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and not just bail out large corporations, banks and investors with no human rights or social conditions attached.
EU-wide inequality is back to pre-crisis levels
by Michael Dauderstädt on 15th April 2020 After almost a decade, EU-wide inequality finally regained its previous low of 2009 due to relatively strong growth in the poorer member states between the Baltic and the Balkans.
World’s 22 richest men’s wealth more than all African women
By Anna Tonelli NEW YORK, Mar 3 2020 (IPS) – This International Women’s Day, 25 years after we first heard it declared that “women’s rights are human rights” at the historic Beijing 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, we need…
Including racism in the discussion of well-being at work
by Sarah Chander on 25th February 2020 The sociologist David Williams has said racism makes us sick and this is also true at work. How can we create workplaces which promote wellbeing for all? How work affects our mental health…
Financialization increases inequality
Kuala Lumpur/Penang, Feb (IPS/Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui) — Financialization has worsened inequality through various channels, including macroeconomic policies. For example, quantitative easing and low, if not negative interest rates have fuelled credit and asset price bubbles,…
Top 10 rich people worth more than 85 poorest countries GDP
Data gathered and calculated by Learnbonds.com indicates that the world’s top ten richest people have a combined wealth more than the bottom 85 poorest countries based on GDP. According to the data, the top ten richest people have cumulative wealth…
Global inequality continues to grow: UNDESA report
By Samira Sadeque UN, Jan 23 2020 (IPS) – More than 70 percent of the global population is currently living in parts of the world where income inequality has grown, according to a World Social Report 2020 launched by United…
UN Report: Rising inequality affects more than 70% of Globe
NEW YORK, Jan 21 2020 (IPS) – Inequality is growing for more than 70 per cent of the global population, exacerbating the risks of divisions and hampering economic and social development. But the rise is far from inevitable and can…
Billionaires beware
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kualalumpur, Jan 7 2020 (IPS) – The latest November 2019 UBS/PwC Billionaires Report counted 2,101 billionaires globally, or 589 more than five years before. Earlier, Farhad Manjoo had seriously recommended, ‘Abolish…
Freetown joins C40 Cities to face climate change, inequality
London, 26 November: Freetown, Sierra Leone is the newest member of C40 Cities. Freetown joins 93 cities worldwide committed to delivering on the highest ambitions of the Paris Agreement and to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5°C.
Meeting you’ve never heard of — & challenge on inequality
By Ben Phillips Mexico City, Oct 9 2019 (IPS) – Last month 195 world leaders once again met in New York for big speeches and grand events. But on inequality, when all is said and done, more has been said…
The growing inequality in South Asia – SAAPE
04 September 2019, Kathmandu – South Asian countries have failed to make the use of economic growth in the region to improve the lives of the poor and marginalized people of the community, mostly women, girls and marginalised communities and…
Inequality in Europe—wider than it looks
by Michael Dauderstädt on 3rd September 2019 Most discussion of inequality in Europe is confined to individual member states. Aggregating incomes across the EU, however, presents a sobering picture. How unequal is the distribution of income within the European Union?…
Reimagining ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ on Inequality in Asia-Pacific
By Srinivas Tata and Jaco Cilliers Bangkok, Thailand, (IPS) – It’s 1962, and in a modest Hong Kong neighbourhood, a poetic love story unfolds. Filmed almost twenty years ago, Wong Kar-wai’s seminal movie In the Mood for Love captured the…
Why can’t dynamic Asia-Pacific beat poverty?
By Shuvojit Banerjee and Poh Lynn Ng Bangkok, Aug 2019 (IPS) – Asia and the Pacific is lauded globally for its rapid economic growth over recent decades and has lifted 1.1 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990. Nevertheless,…
Class analyst: Global income inequality
By Chris Wellisz Washington DC, May 24 2019 (IPS) – As a child growing up in Communist Yugoslavia, Branko Milanovic witnessed the protests of 1968, when students occupied the campus of the University of Belgrade and hoisted banners reading “Down…
The world made promise to women, Girls; we must fulfill them
By Monica Juma NAIROBI, Kenya, May 24 2019 (IPS) – In 1994 the International Conference and Population and Development (ICPD) was hosted in Cairo by the Government of Egypt. Twenty-five years later, Kenya is ready to convene the ICPD “Nairobi…
Authoritarianism, social inequalities a prelude to conflict
STOCKHOLM, May 17 2019 (IPS) – I want to talk about peacebuilding and inclusive peace. My main point is that peace begins in the minds of people, and people, communities, societies must be allowed to participate in peace for it to…
Inequality: From redistribution to predistribution & beyond?
by Liam Kennedy Soaring income inequality inevitably raises discussion of more progressive taxation. But a more fundamental focus on the ownership of capital is needed. ‘Taxes, taxes, taxes … All the rest is bullsh*t in my opinion.’ The now much-travelled…
World Bank dispossessing rural poor
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, Apr 16 2019 (IPS) – The World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, launched in 2013, has sought agricultural reforms favouring the corporate sector. EBA was initially…
Davos, inequality & the climate emergency
Four of the top five most impactful threats in this year’s World Economic Forum´s Global Risks report are related to climate change. The report warns that we are “sleepwalking to disaster” . But that is not true.
Mass immigration and the growth of inequality
The claim that immigration is economically beneficial appears to be an article of faith amongst those who consider themselves progressive. However, mere changes in total GDP often mean little in terms of the lived reality of society. Much more important…
Why inequality matters
There was a time, not long ago, when most economists did not consider inequality in the distribution of income and wealth all that important. True, in Scandinavia and Austria, for example, distributional issues were embedded in economic policy through “social…