Over the past decade, the percentage of millionaires has remained stable at around 1 percent of the total world population. However, 2022 marks a turning point, breaking this stagnation. Increase in the number of millionaires It is due to the rise of technologies associated with artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies.

According to the Global Wealth Report 2023 prepared by Swiss financial services institution UBS, the number of millionaires in the world has increased in the last decade, reaching 59.4 million people.

This represented 1.10% of the world population in 2022. In the 2024 edition of the same report, the data continues the upward trend of the increase in the millionaire population, which already represents 1.5% of the total world population in 2024.

Although the number of millionaires with more than $1 million in investable assets has increased, this population also accumulates $213.8 billion, representing 47.5% of global wealth. This percentage is up from 45.8% recorded in the previous report last year.

So this segment of the population is also accumulating greater amounts of wealth. As the wealth of the top 1.5 percent of the population increases, so does the inequality in the distribution of wealth.

Inequality by country explained with a graph

The Gini index is a measure used to measure income inequality in countries on a scale of 100. Positions with a score closest to 0 are those with greater equality in wealth distribution, while positions with a Gini coefficient closer to 100 are those with greater equality. the gap between low-income and ultra-rich people.

The Visualcapitalist.com portal has created a graph representing wealth inequality in the world using the Gini index in different countries. The graph is based on the data shown in the Global Wealth Report 2024, which we mentioned earlier, taking into account the Gini Index data between 2008 and 2023.

If we stick to 2023 data only, South Africa leads the way in dubious registration honors the greatest inequality in wealth distribution The Gini index is 82. This means that around 10% of the country’s population controls 80% of the country’s total wealth. According to the report, the country’s economic situation has worsened, with the unemployment rate at 32% compared to 20% recorded in 2020.

Even though more than thirty years have passed, apartheid Race continues to be the determining factor in wealth distribution in the country.

In a similar situation we see Brazil with a score of 81. Between 2023 and 2024 the number of billionaires in the country increased from 51 to 64. Inequality in these countries is 17.7% and has increased by 16.8% since 2008.

In third and fourth place we find the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with a Gini score of 77. This inequality stems from the origin of their dynastic regime, which has caused a small elite group of sheikhs associated with the ruling monarchy to accumulate all the wealth.

Since 2008, these two countries have reduced their inequality the most in the overall picture, falling from Gini scores of 88 and 89, respectively, with declines of 12.4% and 13.3%.

It’s surprising that Sweden ranks fifth in this ranking with a score of 75. The data table places most European countries below the 68-point range. The explanation for this disparity is the success of unicorns, which have made their founders enormously wealthy but have created an imbalance in the country’s income distribution.

Spain is among the best-positioned countries, but it has some nuances

According to the data of the UBS report, Belgium, country with better wealth distribution Qatar, with a Gini index of 46, is followed by Qatar with 48 points, and Japan and Australia with 54 points.

The good news is that we have to go all the way down to the bottom of the table to find Spain, which shows an acceptable distribution of wealth. Spain ranks fifth from bottom on the Gini index with a score of 57. While this is one of the best scores in the table, it does represent a big step backwards in wealth distribution when looking back since 2008.

In 2008, Spain’s Gini index was 47 points, representing a 19.8% increase in inequality, falling short of the 21% increase in inequality in Finland, which recorded the largest recovery in the table, at 22.9%.

So in Spain, there is a weighted distribution of wealth where a small percentage of the population does not concentrate the majority of wealth. But the gap between the richest 1% of the Spanish population and the rest has widened.

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Image | VirtualCapitalist.com