India is a poorest one in Per Capita Household Wealth : UN Report

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER). Under the study, India's average per capita net worth was only 24.7 per cent of the world average, and its GDP was 29.2 % of the world average.

$144,000 per Capita household wealth in the USA

$1,100 per Capita household wealth in India

The US is the richest country, with mean wealth estimated at $144,000 per person in the year 2000.4 At the opposite extreme among countries with wealth data, we have India with per capita wealth of about $6,500 in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. The two low income countries in our sample, India and Indonesia, stand out as having particularly high shares of non-financial wealth.12 This is no surprise since assets such as housing, land, agricultural assets and consumer durables are particularly important in many developing countries. In addition, financial markets are often poorly developed. In India, the only low or middle income country for which we have some detail on financial assets, most of the financial assets owned by households are liquid.

India is categorized under the last group consists of 64 low-income countries. This group's collective household net worth on a PPP basis amounted to 8.3 per cent of world wealth, compared to 39.9 per cent of the world’s population and 11.3 per cent of world GDP.

Of the 13 countries for which we have the pertinent data, the US again ranks first in net worth per capita, at $143,857, followed on a PPP basis by Australia at $101,597, and Japan at $91,856. In this group, India is last, at $6,513 on a PPP basis and $1,112 on an exchange rate basis, preceded by Indonesia, at $7,973 on a PPP basis and $1,440 using official exchange rates. China appears to be about twice as wealthy as India, having per capita net worth of $11,267 on a PPP basis or 2,613 using official exchange rates.

Download the full study: WIDER WDHW (PDF 1,167KB), Powerpoint presentation (PPT 7,003KB)