Some countries have less inequality, but also have less average wealth. People do not migrate to those poorer countries seeking to be richer than their neighbors. Instead, people tend to migrate to areas of higher wealth, even though it means they will have less relative wealth. It's clear that absolute wealth is more important to people than the zero-sum game of relative wealth.
1. By that logic, everyone who doesn't migrate from such a country is voting in favor of equality over absolute wealth and they constitute a much larger number.
2. To some degree, people do migrate to poorer areas and countries, including those of retirement age, to improve their perceived quality of life which is solely due to greater difference in wealth.
Australia 219,505
Luxembourg 182,768
Belgium 148,141
France 141,850
Italy 138,653
United Kingdom 111,524
Japan 110,294
Iceland 104,733
Switzerland 95,916
Finland 95,095
Norway 92,859
Canada 90,252
Netherlands 83,631
New Zealand 76,607
Ireland 75,573
Spain 63,306
Denmark 57,675
Austria 57,450
Greece 53,937
Sweden 52,677
Germany 49,370
Slovenia 44,932
United States 44,911
...
PS: US only has high wealth if you ignore debt. Owing 200k on a 200k house is not wealth.
There was some slight of hand on my part, the ratios are plotted, not the absolute numbers. The wealth inequality is more interesting than absolute country wealth in the context of the simulation I feel.
I agree regarding the debt, that's why net and gross values are included in the chart. For the top 3 it makes no difference. Iceland as an outlier isn't something I would have expected though
Edit: Also the mean probably isn't defined for whatever power law is generating wealth distribution in each country anyway
>Some countries have less inequality, but also have less average wealth. People do not migrate to those poorer countries seeking to be richer than their neighbors.
Of course they do. Retiring abroad in low cost locales is very common these days.
