The inequality in wealth is even greater, given that while the bottom half’s share in the total income is 14%, its share in total wealth is only about 6%.

The researchers wrote that these changes have been mapped despite poor data transparency in India. “Over the past three years, the quality of inequality data released by the government has seriously deteriorated, making it particularly difficult to assess recent inequality changes.”

Gender inequality in India

While India has made strides in improving its sex ratio, economic inequality is still heavily tilted against women. Women share only 18% of the total national income, even though their population share is close to 50%.

This, the authors noted, is among the worst in the world, even below the 21% average for Asia. Such vast inequality persists despite an improvement of 8 percentage points in female income share since 1990.

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