This morning I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about the widening gap between rich and poor countries as a result of the pandemic. I thought it was interesting they tracked remittances as a measure of impact. Employment pre-pandemic comparison showed steep differences. The number of people living in extreme poverty (<$2.15) is projected to increase substantially.
Towards the end of the article, we read, “Economists say some of the pandemic’s potential longer-term effects include a squeeze on poorer countries’ room for growth. In education, for instance, it isn’t known if girls will return to the classroom as quickly as boys when Covid-19 recedes, undermining progress on narrowing attainment gaps between the sexes in poorer countries.”
In the article, Christoph Lakner, a senior economist at the World Bank, said, “Before the pandemic, progress on alleviating poverty world-wide was already slowing. Rapid growth in incomes in places such as India and China in previous decades drove a steep reduction in poverty that had started to peter out as the world’s poorest became increasingly concentrated in places beset by conflict. The virus has intensified that slowdown. Covid is a big setback.”
