A recent article published by The Economist highlighted a counterintuitive insight drawn from World Data Lab data: despite widespread belief, global consumption inequality has fallen sharply over the past two decades.
Below, World Data Lab CEO Wolfgang Fengler reflects on what this shift really means, and why consumption tells a very different story about how people live, spend, and progress.
Wolfgang: What struck me most is how different long-term trends are from public perception. When people open the news or talk casually about the economy, the dominant view is that the world is becoming more unequal and unfair. That perception isn’t entirely wrong; wealthy individuals have done very well.
But what’s often overlooked is that many people who are not wealthy have also seen significant improvements in their living standards over the past 25 years. This is largely because poorer countries, especially in Asia, have grown faster than richer ones. India and China alone account for more than a third of the world’s population, and sustained growth there has had a powerful equalising effect globally.
That dynamic is fundamental to how the global economy has evolved, yet it’s rarely acknowledged in the inequality debate.
Wolfgang: People focus on headlines rather than trend lines. Wealth is highly visible and often displayed very publicly; private jets, luxury lifestyles, and high-profile billionaires dominate media and social platforms.
At the same time, stories of hardship rightly attract attention. What doesn’t make headlines is slow, steady progress. Hundreds of thousands of people escaping poverty each day in countries like Vietnam will never trend on social media.
There’s also a mistaken belief that if the rich are doing well, others must be doing worse. In reality, both can happen at the same time: wealthy groups can prosper while lower-income households also improve their living conditions. Consumption data captures this nuance far better than wealth statistics alone.
Wolfgang: Consumption reflects daily life. It’s everything people spend money on: housing, food, transport, energy, and clothing. It shows how people live today, not what they might accumulate over decades.
Wealth accumulation requires surplus income and participation in financial systems. That applies to perhaps three billion people globally. But to understand how all eight billion people live and progress, consumption is the more relevant measure.
The transition from no transport to a bicycle, then to a motorcycle, and eventually to a car represents real life-changing progress. These shifts are especially important in emerging markets and often go unnoticed when looking only at wealth.
Wolfgang: It clearly shows that the centre of gravity of global consumption has moved. Today, roughly 4.5 billion people are middle class or above, and more than half of them live in Asia.
This isn’t just a China or India story. It includes Southeast Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and, increasingly, parts of Africa. While the US and Europe remain critical due to their high spending power, around 80% of new consumers entering the global market are in Asia.
Global companies need to serve both: high-spending consumers in developed markets and the fast-growing middle and lower-middle classes elsewhere.
Wolfgang: They underestimate people’s ability to participate in markets. Consumers in emerging economies may not buy premium products in the same way as Western consumers, but they are active, adaptive, and increasingly able to pay, often in smaller, more flexible formats.
This is why innovations such as prepaid mobile plans, smaller packaging, and pay-as-you-go services have been so successful. Policy-makers also often underestimate people’s willingness to pay for reliable electricity, water, and services when systems are designed to match how they live and spend.
Relying on outdated or overly aggregated data leads to missed opportunities.
Wolfgang: Emerging markets must be viewed as a core part of global strategy, not an afterthought. And strategy needs to move beyond country-level thinking to city-level and segment-level analysis.
In many large countries, city strategies are far more effective than national ones. In smaller markets, regional clusters across countries may matter more than individual cities.
Most importantly, decisions shouldn’t rely solely on historical data. Leaders need a consistent, forward-looking view of consumer demand, by country, city, category, and spending group, to make informed long-term investments.
Wolfgang: The responsibility is twofold. First, to be rigorous, methodologically sound, and genuinely agnostic, assessing markets without assumptions or ideology. Second, to communicate findings clearly and transparently.
World Data Lab’s strength lies in its global consistency. Every country, city, and segment fits into a coherent whole. The numbers add up, from local detail to the global picture, across time, allowing decision-makers to test assumptions and trust the results.
Wolfgang: In a turbulent world, it’s important to recognise that progress is still happening. Global consumption inequality is moving in the right direction, and that should give leaders confidence that the global economy can continue to evolve positively.
The key question is whether organisations have a consistent, comparable, forward-looking view of consumer demand across all the markets they operate in. These are major decisions, about investment, pricing, production, and growth, and intuition alone isn’t enough.
With the right data model, leaders can reduce bias, move faster, and make better long-term choices about where the global consumer economy is heading.
Read the full Economist Blog HERE