Global Earnings Inequality, 1970–2015

We estimate trends in global earnings dispersion across occupational groups using a new database covering 66 developed and developing countries between 1970 and 2015. Our main finding is that global earnings inequality has declined, primarily during the 2000s, when the global Gini coefficient dropped nearly 10 points and the earnings share of the world’s poorest half doubled. Decomposition and counterfactual analyses emphasize the role of earnings convergence between countries and within occupations, with a special role played by Chinese and agricultural earnings growth. Sensitivity checks show that the results are robust to varying real exchange rates, inequality measures and population definitions.