The rise of income and wealth inequalities since the 1980s has not been uniform. Certain countries have experienced huge increases in inequality, while others have seen relatively smaller rises. As a result, while inequality within countries has been increasing, global inequalities between countries has decreased.

Inequality remains a huge issue today. A new Transformation Map on Inequality produced by a research team at the Institute for Global Prosperity for the World Economic Forum (WEF) aims to identify the most pressing issues impacting inequality, including income, but also health, age, (dis)ability, gender, technology access, infrastructure, and geographical location.

This Inequality Map is part of the WEF’s strategic intelligence website, which focuses on the drivers of transformational change across economics, industries and global issues. The Transformation Maps cover more than 250 topic areas (ranging from climate change to artificial intelligence (AI), and many country profiles) highlighting relevant publications, videos, data, events, initiatives and stakeholders in the area.

The IGP co-curated the initial Inequality Map with the WEF back in 2020. The updated work considers key events from the last 3 years such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, the women’s protests in Iran, transgender rights protests, the release of AI such as ChatGPT and the continual rise of climate change events.

‘Meeting the challenges of 21st century’s inequality is not possible without significant redistribution of income and wealth and the recognition of difference (in identity or ability, or of access, means and resource). The rise of the modern welfare states in the 20th century was, as a matter of fact, associated with tremendous progress in health, education and opportunities for all and was linked to the rise of progressive taxation rates ensuring everyone contributed to the public good according to their own capacities. We argue that a similar evolution is needed today but one that accounts for our planet’s wellbeing as well as our own.’

Hannah Collins, Research Associate at the IGP.