According to the Global Inequality Report 2026 (World Inequality Report), inequality in Pakistan is deeply entrenched, with the top 10 percent of earners capturing 42 percent of total income, while the bottom 50 percent receive only 19 percent.
Sources say the report, published by the World Inequality Lab, notes that inequality in Pakistan remains high and that only limited progress has been made over the past decade. The World Inequality Lab is a global research center focused on understanding and analyzing economic and social inequality through data-driven research, and is primarily based at the Paris School of Economics.
The report further states that wealth inequality is even more severe, with the richest 10 percent holding 59 percent of total wealth, while the top 1 percent alone accounts for 24 percent.
Pakistan’s average per capita income is approximately €4,200 (purchasing power parity), while average wealth stands at around €15,700 (PPP). The report notes that between 2014 and 2024, the income gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 50 percent narrowed only slightly, declining from 22.0 to 21.4.
Meanwhile, female labor force participation in Pakistan fell from 9.8 percent to 8.5 percent, indicating a decline in gender inclusion. Overall, the report concludes that income and wealth in Pakistan remain highly concentrated, gender disparities persist, and inequality trends have seen only marginal change.
Extreme Global Inequality
The report also highlights that inequality remains extremely high at the global level. It states that worldwide, the top 10 percent of income earners earn more than the remaining 90 percent combined, while the poorest half of the global population receives less than 10 percent of total global income.
Wealth inequality is even more pronounced: the richest 10 percent own three-quarters of global wealth, while the bottom half of the population holds only 2 percent. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the wealthiest 0.001 percent—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires—control more wealth than half of humanity combined. Their share stood at around 4 percent in 1995 and has now exceeded 6 percent, reflecting the persistence of inequality.
This concentration of wealth is not only enduring but accelerating. Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and centi-millionaires has grown at an annual rate of around 8 percent—nearly twice the growth rate of the bottom half of the population. In contrast, gains for the least wealthy have been minimal and largely overshadowed by the extraordinary accumulation of wealth at the very top.
As a result, the report concludes, a very small global elite wields unprecedented financial power, while billions of people remain deprived of basic economic security.
