Income equality
Apr 20th 2011 | from the print edition
The ratio of the share of national income going to the richest 20% of
households in a country to the share of the poorest 20% is a useful
measure of inequality. Figures from the World Bank show that by this
indicator many of the world's most unequal countries are in Latin
America. In Colombia the incomes of the top fifth are nearly 25 times
those of the bottom fifth. Most emerging Asian countries are less
unequal: the incomes of the richest 20% of Chinese are about eight times
those of the poorest 20%. In Thailand, one of Asia's most unequal
countries, the ratio is 15:1. Qatar's income per person is among the
world's highest. But income is unequally distributed: the richest
Qataris receive over 13 times as much as the poorest.
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