Over 2,000 world's richest hold more wealth than 4.6 bn poorest combined: Report

The world is witnessing glaring economic inequality as 2,153 billionaires control more wealth than 4.6 billion people and women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work every day, a report said. Ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam International released Time to Care report highlighting the wealth accumulation and inequality crisis.

According to the report, the world’s richest 2,153 persons have accumulated more wealth than 60 per cent of the global population. The report said that the sexist economies have allowed select billionaires to make vast fortunes at the expense of ordinary people, especially poor women and girls.

“The gap between rich and poor can't be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these,” said Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar.

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Due to the entrenched global inequality, the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade. The latest data claims that the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa.

“Our broken economies are lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of ordinary men and women. No wonder people are starting to question whether billionaires should even exist,” said Behar.

The report suggested the governments around the world to build a human economy that is feminist and benefits the 99 per cent, not only one per cent. It reiterated the proposal to radically reprioritize care with the transformative ‘4R’ framework.

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Framework to fight inequality

The framework suggests recognizing unpaid and poorly paid care work, which is done primarily by women and girls and reduce the total number of hours spent on unpaid care tasks through better access to affordable and quality time-saving devices and care-supporting infrastructure.

It has recommended to redistribute unpaid care work more fairly within the household and simultaneously shift the responsibility of unpaid care work to the state and the private sector. The final principle of the framework is to represent the most marginalized caregivers and ensure that they have a voice in the design and delivery of policies, services and systems that affect their lives.

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