The richest 1% now hold more wealth than the bottom 50% combined. But that figure alone tells you less than you’d think, what matters is understanding how inequality is measured, why different metrics yield different conclusions, and what the data actually shows about its evolution over time.
The richest 1% now own more than half of humanity. One number measures it.
Gini, wealth vs income, social mobility, and redistributive policies
Why This Topic Matters
Economic inequalities fuel political debates in every country. Rising housing prices, stagnating wages, enrichment of the wealthiest: many feel the gaps are widening. But beyond perception, how do we objectively measure these inequalities? And most importantly, why does it matter?
Economic inequalities aren’t just an abstract question of fairness. They directly impact your daily life. In a highly unequal society, your chances of success depend more on your family background than on your talents. Access to housing, quality education, and healthcare becomes increasingly difficult for a growing portion of the population. Social tensions increase, trust in institutions erodes, collective cohesion fractures.
Conversely, moderate inequalities can stimulate the economy by rewarding effort and innovation. The real challenge isn’t to achieve perfect equality, but to understand at what threshold inequalities become toxic to society. This threshold varies according to cultural values, but data allows us to identify concerning dynamics: when gaps explode, social mobility collapses and opportunities concentrate in a few hands.
In this article, you’ll discover how these inequalities are measured, understand why wealth and income tell different stories, observe how gaps have evolved over forty years, discover what social mobility really means through concrete examples, and finally examine how states attempt to regulate these inequalities.
The Basics: How Do We Measure Inequality?
The Gini Coefficient: The Reference Indicator
The Gini coefficient is the most widely used statistical tool worldwide to measure inequality. It takes the form of a number between 0 and 1 (or between 0 and 100 if expressed as a percentage). A Gini of 0 would mean perfect equality: everyone has exactly the same income or wealth. A Gini of 1 would mean absolute inequality: one person owns everything, others have nothing.
Concretely, imagine a country of 100 inhabitants. If everyone earns exactly €30,000 per year, the Gini will be 0. If 99 people earn nothing and one person earns 3 million euros (the total income), the Gini will be 1. In reality, no country sits at these extremes. Nordic countries display Ginis around 0.25-0.28, considered relatively egalitarian. The United States sits around 0.39, indicating more marked inequalities. Some Latin American or African countries exceed 0.50, revealing very strong inequalities.
The Gini is calculated by comparing the actual distribution of income or wealth to a perfectly equal distribution. The more the actual distribution curve deviates from the equality line, the higher the Gini. This indicator is particularly useful because it allows comparing inequalities between countries or tracking their evolution over time.
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