More than 77% of India’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of just 10% of its population — and it shows that its economic divide is only widening

• With a total wealth of $ 6 trillion in mid-2018, India’s 10% elites own 77.4% wealth.
  
• Among the total adult population of 850 million, 91% people have wealth lower than $10,000.
  
• The report points out the increasing economic divide in India, where poorest 60% are left out with 4.7% wealth in the nation.
  

As one of the world’s fastest growing economies, India’s share of global wealth has been increasing for over a decade now. But just 10% of Indians possess more than three-fourths of the country’s wealth, according to the ninth Global Wealth Report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute.

77.4% of India’s wealth is in the hands of 10% of its population, according to the report, with the richest 1% controlling more than 51% of the wealth. But the concentration of wealth among the top 1% has fallen in comparison to 2017, where the top 1% owned 58.4% of the country’s wealth. In contrast, the poorest section acquiring 60% of the population have less than 5% share in the nation’s wealth.

The report also suggests that the number of millionaires in India is on the rise, and is likely to rise from 343,000 in 2018 to 526,000 in 2023.

But while India’s wealth is one the rise, it does not do much to alleviate the country’s poverty struggle. India has a total wealth of $ 6 trillion, but a mean wealth of just $7,024 per adult.

In fact, a majority of Indians (91%) have less than $ 10,000 in wealth. On the flipside, 404,0000 Indians are among the top 1% of the global wealthy

In contrast, just 28.4% of adults in the US fall below $10,000, and just a third of the Chinese population has less than $10,000.

The report also uses the Gini coefficient as a tool to measure the increasing economic disparity in the country.The Gini coefficient measures inequality on a scale of 0-100,where 0 reflects perfect equality. India has witnessed a rise in the Gini wealth coefficient reflecting a rise in inequality, according to the report, with the number rising from 81.3 in 2013 to 85.4 in 2018.

Another way to approach wealth equality in a nation is to calculate the difference between mean wealth and median wealth. India’s mean wealth per adult rose at a compounded annual growth (CAGR) rate of 8.3% from 2013 and 2018. But the median wealth per adult was recorded at a CAGR of 4.4%.