The Atlas of Global Inequalities. Ben Crow

The Atlas of Global Inequalities

amount spent by those in poorer countries.

Consumption

People face deprivation even in industrialized countries, where more than 100 million people are reported homeless. In the USA, where more food is consumed per person than anywhere else in the world, nearly 7 million households reported going hungry at some point during 2008. In non-industrialized countries, about a fifth of all people are undernourished, and a quarter do not have adequate housing. Ownership of household assets such as refrigerators, televisions, cell phones and cars is concentrated in the wealthiest groups. Raising the consumption levels of more than a billion poor people is as important as moving towards sustainable consumption patterns that reduce environmental damage and promote product safety and the rights of consumers.

Poor households have to spend most of their income on food, with little left for other purposes.

R Around the globe, there are differences in the ways labor is mobilized, the productivity of that work, and the lives work makes possible through its remuneration. Coercive forms of work, notably slavery, forced labor and debt bondage, have declined in the last 200 years. The number of people employed in agriculture has declined as a result of mechanization and the increasing number of jobs in manufacturing, mining, power generation, and construction. More recently, the more “advanced” economies have moved away from the manufacture of goods, towards the provision of services such as marketing, finance, and legal expertise. A comparison of the proportion of people employed in agriculture, industry and services, and the contribution those sectors make to a country’s GDP, reveals the contribution made by workers in each sector to the economy.

Work & Unemployment

Most people in industrialized economies work in formal, contracted, regulated employment, but in most developing countries the majority work informally, in unregulated work, producing and selling goods on a small scale. The nature of this work makes reliable data hard to find. Unemployment is a major source of inequality and deprivation, particularly throughout most of the non-industrial world, where there is little support for the unemployed. Unemployment levels have risen dramatically since the onset of the recession in 2007, but global data on this change is not yet available. Work provides more than remuneration. It may, for example, bestow status. Gender differences in the level of unemployment often reflect power inequalities – most strikingly in the Middle East.

Differences in livelihoods, remuneration, unemployment, and underemployment create considerable inequalities.

40–41 Gender R

R People migrate to seek higher incomes, better work, access to higher education, and better healthcare. Labor migration leads to the expansion of human freedoms, so it can reduce global inequality. It has been suggested that migration could be an alternative to foreign aid. People from countries with the least development (measured by HDI) often have the most to gain from labor migration. Those who have the most to gain from migration, however, are least likely, or able, to migrate. Poverty is a significant constraint to emigration. Those in the poorest countries, and the poorest people within countries, are less able to migrate and, despite high demand for their low-skilled labor, encounter numerous barriers to their migration.

Labor Migration

Those who do migrate achieve higher incomes than those who stay home. They are able to send money home as remittances, which directly increases opportunities and freedoms for their families. Globally, the money that migrants send home is more than twice as large as foreign aid, and for many countries remittances are the largest source of foreign exchange. Not everyone who migrates does so for economic purposes. Conflict-induced migration and forced migration also contribute to the overall flows of labor migration. There were some 42 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2008.

Each year millions of people move within their own country and between countries in search of better-paid or more secure work. Labor migration can help address global inequalities.

40–41 Gender

42–43 Age R

Power Inequalities

R The division of the world into bounded societies under the authority of national governments, which emerged over the last two centuries, has been challenged in the last few decades by the growing interconnectedness of people and their activities. This process of global integration has diverse implications, from the apparent diminution of the power of national governments, through the rise of new global financial and environmental challenges, to questions about the adequacy of global representation, and the rising importance of global economic discourse and ideology. Nonetheless, national governments remain the dominant actors, and those that have industrialized are the most influential, with global power roughly corresponding to overall economic output. Fueled by the industrial revolution, the share of the world GDP contributed by the West has grown over the last two centuries, but since the beginning of the 21st century the hierarchy of power has begun to change with the rapid industrialization of the two massive economies of China and India. Countries that have been unable to industrialize have much less influence. Those with only a small number of exportable goods face an uphill struggle for foreign exchange and industrialization. The government of the largest economy, the USA, frequently acts as if it were the government of the world. On other occasions, self-appointed groups of industrialized countries, the G5, G8, and G20, make global decisions on certain topics, while avoiding discussion of others. Thus, these governments exercise ideological power by influencing the framework of desires and goals. They control the public agenda, and dominate international agreements on issues such as trade tariffs, intellectual property laws, agricultural subsidies, international aid, and military assistance. Military spending dwarfs spending on health and education in many countries. In OECD countries, it also overshadowed development assistance by a factor of around 10:1 in 2005. Greater possibilities for increased freedom and capabilities can emerge at local, national, and global levels if expenditure is directed to the improvement of equality of daily living conditions and security. The most intimate forms of power, in the home, over language and at work, are also influenced by government action and global ideas. These forms of power are difficult to map, although this section does explore how the power of citizens influences government, through the rise of democratic forms of government, and how the modern state exercises social control via imprisonment and execution.

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