The Covid-19 crisis widens the already significant inequalities around the world and within developed countries, alarm economists, political and business leaders at the Aix-en-Seine meetings in Paris, for whom their reduction will have to to be a major issue in the next world. “Epidemics tend to make the world fall on the side where it is already leaning. It is in a way an accelerator and a revealer of weaknesses, "underlined economist Pierre Dockes, professor emeritus at the University of Lyon 2, during this economic meeting which was held this weekend.
In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic, doctors and epidemiologists have found that the coronavirus more significantly affects people who are victims of chronic diseases (obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases), proportionally more present in the poor populations of developed countries. And it is especially people in low-skilled trades who had to continue working to run food businesses, the warehouses of e-commerce giants or health services.
Stopping for emerging countries?
In developed countries, austerity policies after the 2008 crisis "reduced the quality of public services, in the health sector for example, and the support of people in need, unemployed", making them more vulnerable today, notes Mark Stabile, researcher at Insead, specialist in inequalities. "It is clear that we will have an increase in inequalities" because of this crisis, also warned the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde.
For Pierre Dockes, countries like India or Brazil could see a halt in the movement of "catching up" in the standard of living of their middle classes compared to those of Western countries. But there is another inequality generated by the Covid-19 which we will have to be wary of, that is between the generations, estimated the Italian economist Elsa Fornero, former Minister of Labor in her country between 2011 and 2013.
Generational divide
If “the older generations have paid the heaviest price in terms of human lives, (…) on the economic consequences, containment measures - for example with the closure of schools (…) - have left children, adolescents , outside the education system ", which" may have long-term consequences (...) on their integration into the economy, "she pointed out. Studies carried out after the 2008 crisis have shown that the generations that struggled to enter the labor market during the crisis have never caught up in terms of their careers.
For experts, in addition to economic recovery to boost the rebound in growth, we must imagine solutions to widening these inequalities. Some economists, including Gabriel Zucman, advocate exceptional taxation on the wealthy, on the model of the German experience after 1945. Germany "chose to impose temporary and very progressive levies on large fortunes", at l 'The opposite of France and the United Kingdom who preferred to let inflation slip to reduce the debt,' he explained.
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