Peru was one of the countries that most reduced the inequality of income at the level of the Latin American region in the period 2001-2019, highlighted the Peruvian Institute of Economy (IPE) with data from the World Bank.
In the comparison, which is based on the Gini coefficient (with information from the National Household Survey or Enaho), Peru surpassed countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, although it was behind Chile in terms of poverty reduction . However, in 2020 a temporary increase in inequality was observed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Víctor Fuentes, chief economist of the IPE, explained that, although inequality and poverty have decreased significantly, there is “an important space for improvement and that goes hand in hand with closing social gaps and improving social protection.” alluding to the improvement of basic services, for example.
“The challenge of social gaps is more focused on rural areas, where access to water and sewage is very low,” he said.
Regarding the reality observed in 2020, Fuentes commented that “Enaho registers a setback in the decrease in inequality, so it increases in 2020, but it also predicts that income inequality would have improved in 2021 in a context of recovery economic and extraordinary income, both public and private”.
