World’s 22 richest men have more than all women in Africa
According to information released by Oxfam, billionaires have doubled in the past decade and are richer than 60 percent of the global population.
One dollar bills on a table. / Photo: Pixabay
The Woman Post | Luisa Fernanda Báez Toro
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Leer en español: Los 22 hombres más ricos del mundo tienen más que todas las mujeres en África
This charity's annual inequality report, called 'Time to Care', was released a few days after the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to their findings, the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
Oxfam’s figures are based on data from Forbes magazine and Swiss bank Credit Suisse, according to the Egypt Independent.
As read on The Independent, Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said: “When 22 men have more wealth than all the women in Africa combined, it’s clear that our economy is just plain sexist.”
“One way that our upside-down economic system deepens inequality is by chronically undervaluing care work, usually done by women, who are often left little time to get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our societies are run and are therefore trapped in poverty”, he added.
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The statistics are quite surprising. The world's richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people and women and girls put up with 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day, estimated to be worth at least $10.8 trillion a year.
Women and girls are more affected because they are most often caregivers that keep “the wheels of our economies, businesses, and societies moving,” said Oxfam’s India head Amitabh Behar.
They “often have little time to get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our societies are run,” and “are therefore trapped at the bottom of the economy,” he added.
According to Oxfam figures, “across the globe, 42 percent of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving, compared to just six percent of men”.
Also, according to The Independent, men own 50 percent more of the world’s wealth than women and govern and control over 86 percent of corporations.
"Women are supporting the market economy with cheap and free labor and they are also supporting the state by providing care that should be provided by the public sector," the report states.
"This unpaid work is fueling a sexist economic system that takes from the many and puts money in the pockets of the few”, it continues.
"If world leaders meeting this week are serious about reducing poverty and inequality, they urgently need to invest in care… and tackle discrimination holding back women and girls," Mr. Sriskandarajah concluded.
