According to a study, the CoV pandemic is exacerbating social inequality worldwide. The 1,000 richest people could have made up for their losses in the crisis in just nine months, according to a study published today by the emergency aid and development organization Oxfam. In contrast, it could take the poorest more than a decade to recover from the economic fallout from the pandemic.
„Wages, human rights fall by the wayside“
Economic inequality is threatening to worsen in almost all countries at the same time – for the first time in more than a century. „Companies, markets and politics around the world are designed in such a way that short-term profit interests too often triumph over the common good,“ said Tobias Hauschild from Oxfam Germany.
“Occupational safety, wages and human rights fall by the wayside.” In the short term, a tax policy is necessary that allows companies and the super-rich to participate appropriately in the financing of the community.
Worst job crisis since the interwar period
The wealth of the ten richest men in the world has increased by almost half a trillion to 1.12 trillion US dollars since February 2019, despite the pandemic.
„This profit would be more than enough to vaccinate the entire world population against Covid-19 and to ensure that nobody is impoverished by the pandemic,“ said Oxfam. At the same time, the world is experiencing the worst labor market crisis in more than 90 years, in which hundreds of millions of people lost income or jobs.
Women hardest hit
Women are most affected by it. In industries in which the pandemic threatens particularly large income and job losses, such as the hospitality industry and office management, 49 percent of working women are employed, but only 40 percent of men. Women also make up around 70 percent of the global workforce in health and social services, where they are at greater risk of developing Covid-19.
Research from the UK also showed that the death rate of people with Covid-19 in low-income areas is twice as high as in affluent areas. There are similar results from France, Spain and India.
