A new Oxfam International report, published Monday and dubbed “Time to Care,” revealed that the world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 60 percent of the entire population, and found that women are most impacted by the growing equality gap.
The study additionally shows that the number of billionaires has doubled in the past decade, and the 22 wealthiest men in the world have more money than all the women in Africa. “The gap between rich and poor can’t be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these,” said Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar in a press statement. “Our broken economies are lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of ordinary men and women. No wonder people are starting to question whether billionaires should even exist.”
Oxfam ultimately argued in the report that the wealthiest people and corporations are not being taxed enough and that governments “must prioritize care as being as important as all other sectors.”