In recent years, the intensification of socioeconomic inequities in India has become an issue of concern.
Globalisation on one hand has accelerated the flow of various goods, money, technology and people across
nations but on the other hand it has also led to unequal distribution of the benefits of development, thus
increasing the inequities. The lopsided nature of the present globalisation process is apparent from the fastgrowing
gap between the world’s rich and poor people, who are unevenly distributed between the developed
and developing countries.
The UN Human Development Report (1999) compares the size of the income of the fifth of the world's
people living in the richest countries and that of the fifth in the poorest. The ratio had changed from 30 to
1 in 1960, to 60 to 1 in 1990 and to 74 to 1 in 1997. The world's 358 richest billionaires have a combined net
worth of US $ 760 billion, which is equal to the total assets of the poorest 45% of the world's population.
The overall consumption of the richest fifth of the world's people is 160 times that of the poorest fifth.
From these figures, it is evident that the current forms of globalisation are making the world a place for
unfettered market liberalism with the consequent growth ofinequities.
These socio-economic inequities are one of the major causes for inequities in health status. In most
countries, disparities in health achievements may be found according to class, gender, ethnicity, religion,
geographical region, and other such characteristics.