20-Jan-2020: World’s billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people

The world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population, reveals a new report from Oxfam today ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

Global inequality is shockingly entrenched and vast and the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade. Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar, who is in Davos to represent the Oxfam confederation this year said: “The gap between rich and poor can't be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these.”

Oxfam’s report, ‘Time to Care’, shows how our sexist economies are fuelling the inequality crisis —enabling a wealthy elite to accumulate vast fortunes at the expense of ordinary people and particularly poor women and girls:

• The 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
• Women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day —a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry.
• Getting the richest one percent to pay just 0.5 percent extra tax on their wealth over the next 10 years would equal the investment needed to create 117 million jobs in sectors such as elderly and childcare, education and health.

Women and girls are among those who benefit least from today’s economic system. They spend billions of hours cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly. Unpaid care work is the ‘hidden engine’ that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses and societies moving. It is driven by women who often have little time to get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our societies are run, and who are therefore trapped at the bottom of the economy.

Women do more than three-quarters of all unpaid care work. They often have to work reduced hours or drop out of the workforce because of their care workload. Across the globe, 42 percent of women of working age cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving, compared to just six percent of men.

Women also make up two-thirds of the paid ‘care workforce’. Jobs such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and care assistants are often poorly paid, provide scant benefits, impose irregular hours, and can take a physical and emotional toll.

The pressure on careers, both unpaid and paid, is set to grow in the coming decade as the global population grows and age. An estimated 2.3 billion people will be in need of care by 2030 —an increase of 200 million since 2015. Climate change could worsen the looming global care crisis —by 2025, up to 2.4 billion people will live in areas without enough water, and women and girls will have to walk even longer distances to fetch it.

The report shows governments are massively under-taxing the wealthiest individuals and corporations and failing to collect revenues that could help lift the responsibility of care from women and tackle poverty and inequality.

At the same time, governments are underfunding vital public services and infrastructure that could help reduce women and girls’ workload. For example, investments in water and sanitation, electricity, childcare, healthcare could free up women’s time and improve their quality of life. For example, providing access to an improved water source could save women in parts of Zimbabwe up to four hours of work a day, or two months a year.

Governments created the inequality crisis —they must act now to end it. They must ensure corporations and wealthy individuals pay their fair share of tax and increase investment in public services and infrastructure. They must pass laws to tackle the huge amount of care work done by women and girls, and ensure that people who do some of the most important jobs in our society —caring for our parents, our children and the most vulnerable— are paid a living wage. Governments must prioritize care as being as important as all other sectors in order to build more human economies that work for everyone, not just a fortunate few.

Oxfam is part of the Fight Inequality Alliance, a growing global coalition of civil society organizations and activists that will be holding events from 18-25 January in 30 countries, including India, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda and the UK, to promote solutions to inequality and demand that economies work for everyone.

5-Nov-2019: World Migration Report 2020

Since 2000, IOM has been producing world migration reports. The World Migration Report 2020, the tenth in the world migration report series, has been produced to contribute to increased understanding of migration throughout the world. This flagship World Migration Report has been produced in line with IOM’s Environment Policy.

Key findings:

• India accounts for the highest share with 17.5 million Indians living outside the country.
• India is the leading recipient of remittances. International remittances in 2018 (2020 report) reached $689 billion, out of which India received $78.6 billion from the 17.5 million living abroad.
• Remittances received by India have consistently increased between the 2005 and 2020.
• The top migration corridors for Indians are the United Arab Emirates, the US and Saudi Arabia.
• Highest number of migrants entering India come from Bangladesh.

Global scenario:

• As compared to the 2000 Global Migration Report, the number of international migrants has nearly doubled in the 2020 report, from 150 million to 272 million.
• India is followed by Mexico (11.8 million) and China (10.7 million).
• Roughly two-thirds of international migrants are labour migrants.
• The United States was the top remittance-issuer, at $68 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates ($44.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($36.1 billion).
• The top destinations for international migrants is the US where, as of September 2019, there were 50.7 million international migrants.
• The US is followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation and the UK.
• The proportion of female international migrants has only marginally changed between the two reports, from 47.5% in 2000 to 47.9%.
• The share of international migrants who were children has dropped from 16% in 2000 to 13.9%.
• Oceania is the region with the highest proportion of international migrants.
• The UAE is the country with the highest proportion of international migrants.
• More than half of all international migrants (141 million) live in Europe and North America.

Reasons for migration:

• Economic conditions.
• Ongoing conflicts and violence.
• Impact of climate and weather disasters.

1-Dec-2017: World Migration Report 2018

Since 2000, International Organization for Migration(IOM) has been producing world migration reports. This World Migration Report 2018, the ninth in the world migration report series is meant to better contribute to increase the understanding of current and strategic migration issues throughout the world.

Indian tops the world in the number of migrants sent abroad. About 16.59 million Indian live abroad. Mexico sent out 13 million migrants, the second highest number.

The United Arab Emirates has the largest number of Indian migrants, who number 3.31 million, up from 978,992 in 2000, followed by the US with 2.3 million, up from 1.04 million.

The number of migrant from other countries living in India is 5.2 million, a fall of 1.22 million from 2000.

In Europe, there are 1.3 million people from India. Britain has most of them.

Canada now has 602,144 people from India, an increase from 319,138 in 2000.

Australia showed a huge jump of more than four times, from 90,719 people from India in 2000 to 408,880 now.

Most of the international migration takes place among developing countries with 60% of the migrants from Asia going to other Asian countries. About $400 billion is sent to developing countries by migrants and the remittances are used to finance education, housing and other activities that promote development.

World Migration Report presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues, and is structured to focus on two key contributions for readers: Part I: key information on migration and migrants (including migration-related statistics); and Part II: balanced, evidence-based analysis of complex and emerging migration issues. The two parts are intended to provide both overview information that helps to explain migration patterns and processes globally and regionally, and insights and recommendations on major issues that policymakers are or soon will be grappling with.