The Influence Of Wealth Inequality

Wealth inequality exists for over a hundred years. In the last decades, with the economic growth, the percentage of the class which possesses the major amount of asset of the society has developed significantly, while the amount of the poor also ascended. In this essay, wealth inequality can be described as an unequal distribution of assets within a population. This essay will argue that wealth inequality has become a global concern for the following reasons: firstly, wealth inequality exists in a number of countries, including developed countries and emerging economies; secondly, as trading partnerships are more and more connected, wealth inequality may affect one nation’s economic development and be harmful to the trades; lastly, if wealth

The report also pointed out that in the past 14 years Latin America and Africa countries, alongside with India and China, experienced a significant rise-up in wealth inequality. Davies, Shorrocks, Sandstrom and Wolff(2007) estimated that adults who sought to be the top 1% of the wealthiest population required approximately 240 times more riches than to be the wealthiest half of the world population, and 2000 times richer than the bottom half percent. Davies, Shorrocks, Sandstrom and Wolff also stated that one third of the population that distributed the bottom three deciles of the global wealth are Indian while Chinese shared 30% of the population that are in forth to seventh deciles. Compared with these two emerging economies, North American and rich-Asian countries could hardly be seen in the bottom deciles of global wealth. However, developed countries were facing the same issues as developing countries, that is, most of the wealth in these countries can not be owned by the most underprivileged half of their population (Mohammed, 2015). Beddoes (2012) indicates

China had typical reasons that caused wealth inequality: aging, informal family social security and changes in employment pattern (Uchimura, 2005). These reasons were also existing in many other countries, which means the financial gap also existed, this brought changes. According to Frank (2014), for those students who are in wealthier families, they could access into elite university easily and have better chances to get high-paying jobs without debt, while families in middle class or lower are harder to get such advantages. It becomes a vicious circle for the society that, if the governments decide to collect less taxes from the poor in order to reduce their stress, the governments will receive lower revenues. To keep the finance balance, spending must be restricted which means public services such as education, health and housing can not be improved (Castelletti,2008). But if the governments maintain the tax rate, it will bring troubles to the next generation of the poor families (Shaheen,2011). Wilkinson (2011) pointed out that social status could effect on the physiology of stress, creating negative work, therefore violence behaviours will easier to be triggered in low-income groups. Criminal behaviours like theft, bilk and robbery may occur while disadvantaged individuals regard these beheviours as extra sources of