While the 2010’s will be remembered as the decade in which the global 1% of humanity accumulated “unfathomable wealth,” it was, simultaneously, perhaps the best decade yet in terms of poverty alleviation, according to a Brookings Institute survey.
The ‘bigger picture’ Brookings indicates points to a halving of extreme poverty around the world over the past decade, from 15.5% in 2010 to 7.7%, currently. These statistics are largely influenced by what the study says was by the realization of a near eradication of poverty in China.
What the study says was a tipping point in the poverty alleviation process was reportedly arrived at in 2018, in which year more than half the world moved into the middle class bracket for the first time in human history. That development was reportedly attended by major declines in mortality rates among women and infants, both of which have been halved since 1990. Simultaneously, the available evidence suggests that primary education has become near-universal for both boys and girls while the global youth literacy rate rose to 91% as of 2016, though sub-Saharan Africa (75%) lags behind.
