Global Inequality

Today, global inequality is extremely high worldwide and is impacting everyone, either directly or indirectly. The causes of inequality are extensive but are mainly tied to economic conditions of a nation and sometimes, depend on the decisions that the government of that country has made. The countries that are mostly impacted by poverty are the Northern African, Middle Eastern, some of the Southeastern Asian, and some South American countries. Clearly, there are enormous differences in the lives of the rich and the poor country’s residents. Foremost, in rich countries, the residents are much healthier and live longer lives in comparison to the residents of the poor countries. Whereas in rich countries, people enjoy the benefits of adequate health facilities and hospitals, very few poor countries have reliable hospitals. Moreover, residents of poor countries lack proper sanitations, drink polluted water, and risk contracting infectious diseases, which contributes to the low health quality. In rich countries, the people live a much more comfortable life with high technology whereas in poor countries, majority of the people struggle on a daily basis to survive. Hunger, malnutrition, and famine are major issues which the poor countries face. According to the textbook, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 854 million people go hungry every day and that every five seconds a child dies due to hunger. Although hunger is an issue in developed countries as well, it is extreme in poor countries. One other problem in poor countries is the low education and literacy rates. In my opinion, education is an essential necessity in every country and those countries that lack education are at immense disadvantages. The countries that have low education and literacy rates have fewer chances of prospering and succeeding economically. Therefore, one could say that unless education is given importance and attention, the poor countries will become poor while the rich countries will become even richer. As the textbook states, education is important because it contributes to economic growth because people with advanced schooling provide the skilled workers necessary for high wage industries, education offers the only hope for escaping the cycle of harsh working conditions and poverty because poorly educated people are condemned to low waged, unskilled jobs, and finally, educated people have fewer children which, therefore, helps to slowing the global population for explosion that contributes to global poverty.

There are also several important reasons for which we should care about global inequality. Because countries today are much intertwined, what happens in one country leaves an impact on the others. For example, if due to any disruption, the production of an item in China is stopped, there will be a notable impact on the price of that item in the US. Moreover, global inequality is something that should be ended as soon as possible because if the wealth is distributed in an unequal manner, there will be a vast imbalance or perhaps, it would be better to say, there is an imbalance already. Predominantly, there will be an very rich class that will live luxurious lives while there will be very poor people such as those in Africa, who die due to starvation on a daily basis For such reasons, it’s crucial that the inequality is decreased and everyone has the chance of living peaceful and survivable lives without any harsh struggles.