Is the world becoming more unequal?

Why consumption tells a different story than wealth

Wealth is highly visible and highly concentrated. Consumption — housing, food, transport, energy, clothing — reflects how people actually live today rather than what they might accumulate over decades.

Wealth accumulation requires surplus income and participation in financial systems, which applies to perhaps three billion people. To understand how all eight billion people live and progress, consumption is the more relevant measure.

What the data shows

Data released on 20 January 2026, covering 194 countries and economies, show that the spending ratio between the richest 10% and the poorest 50% has more than halved since 2000. Over the same period, the share of consumption held by the richest 1% has also shrunk.

The shift is driven mostly by gains in low- and middle-income economies rather than by changes within rich countries. India and China alone account for more than a third of the world's population, and sustained growth there has had a powerful equalising effect globally.

Why perception runs the other way

Headlines track wealth, not trend lines. Private jets and billionaire fortunes are visible; hundreds of thousands of people escaping poverty each day in countries like Vietnam are not. There is also a mistaken assumption that if the rich are doing well, everyone else must be doing worse — in reality both can happen at once.

What it means for decision-makers

Roughly 4.5 billion people are now middle class or above, and more than half of them live in Asia — around 80% of new consumers entering the global market are there. Focusing only on wealth inequality underestimates people's ability to participate in markets, often in smaller and more flexible formats than Western consumers.