COVID-19 is increasing multiple kinds of inequality. Here’s what we can do about it

Oct 9, 2020

Douglas Felipe Alves Nascimento, 21, who lost his job at a textile firm and tries to make a living selling candy on the streets, pushes a cart with personal items he sold to pay the rent, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Sao Paulo, Brazil August 4, 2020. Picture taken August 4, 2020. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli - RC2PDJ9A3W3L

Women, alongside the poor, elderly, disabled and migrant populations, have borne the brunt of the fallout from the pandemic. Image: REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli

Ian Goldin

Professor of Globalization and Development; Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Robert Muggah

Co-founder, SecDev Group and Co-founder, Igarapé Institute

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Share of employees in shut-down sectors by individual earnings, US. Image: Robert Joyce and Xiaowei Xu, IFS, 6 April 2020.

The share of income going to the top 1% since 1900. The two panels reveal how deliberate changes in national policy since 1900 altered the share of total income going to the top one per cent. On the left are English-speaking countries like the UK and US where inequality has risen sharply, while on the right continental Europe and Japan have contained increases in inequality. Image: Our World in Data and Terra Incognita

Share of employees in shut-down sector by gender and age, UK Image: Robert Joyce and Xiaowei Xu, IFS, 6 April 2020.

Pandemic reverses long-term declines in extreme poverty Image: Financial Times

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