The recent Oxfam report titled “Inequality Kills’’ highlights an increasing income divide amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic on a global scale. This stark divergence in wealth and resultant inequalities require a closer look to understand its impact on various aspects of societies worldwide, including gender, racial groups, healthcare access, starvation conditions, climate-related concerns, vaccine distribution, and economic structures.
Magnitude of Growing Inequities:
The discrepancies in wealth have widened over the course of the pandemic. The net worth of the world’s ten wealthiest individuals has doubled since the start of the pandemic, whereas the incomes of 99% of the world’s population have deteriorated due to the crisis. The report also emphasizes that these inequalities contribute to the death of at least one person every four seconds.
Economic Violence:
The report discusses the concept of ‘economic violence,’ which is essentially a result of structural policy decisions favouring the rich and powerful. These policies disproportionately impact the most impoverished and marginalized sections of society, such as women, girls, and racialized groups.
Unequal Access to Healthcare:
Quality healthcare accessibility remains a privilege for the affluent, although it should be a universal right.
Gender-Based Violence:
Rooted in patriarchal and sexist economic systems, gender-based violence is another inequality highlighted in the report.
Poverty-Induced Hunger:
Poverty leads to hunger, which is a daily reality for billions of people globally.
Inequality of Climate Change Crisis:
Affluent individuals are primarily responsible for driving the climate change crisis with their CO2 emissions.
Vaccine Apartheid:
The Oxfam report highlights the disparity in vaccine distribution, with wealthy nations hoarding doses at the expense of poorer countries, thus fuelling the pandemic’s mutations.
Indian Scenario: Decline in Social Security Expenditure:
In India, where Covid-19 has taken a devastating toll, social security expenditure reduced significantly. The healthcare budget was cut by 10% and educational allocations by 6%.
Growing Inequalities:
As per the report, 84% of Indian households experienced a decrease in income in 2021, while the count of billionaires increased from 102 to 142.
Growing Rich:
The wealth of Indian billionaires soared during the pandemic, making India the country with the third-highest number of billionaires globally.
Growing Poor:
However, poverty also escalated in India, with more than 4.6 crore Indians falling into extreme poverty in 2020.
Blow to Gender Parity:
Women in India collectively lost significant earnings in 2020, leading to fewer women in the workforce compared to 2019.
Increasing Fiscal Deficit:
Lowering corporate taxes to attract investments resulted in revenue loss and contributed to mounting fiscal deficit.
Unequal Federalism:
Despite its federal structure, resource allocation remained skewed towards the Centre. However, the management of the pandemic was left to the states who were not equipped to handle it efficiently due to financial and human resource constraints.
Way Forward:
From taxing the super-rich to investing in policies for universal healthcare, the report provides several suggestions for moving forward. It also calls for changing societal and economic rules to shift power in favour of marginalized groups.