Despite major gains in education and reducing poverty in recent decades, entrenched inequalities are eroding trust in institutions and democratic systems around the world, the UN warned Tuesday.
Thirty years ago, world leaders gathered in Copenhagen for the first World Summit for Social Development, vowing to end poverty, create jobs and promote social integration.
In a fresh report, the UN’s International Labour Organization hailed the “wealthier, healthier and better educated” world created since that summit – at the time the largest-ever gathering of world leaders.
But, it cautioned, “the benefits have not been evenly shared and progress in reducing inequality has stalled.”
“Stark global inequalities endure,” it said in a report issued ahead of the follow-up summit, set to take place in Qatar in November.
“The world has made undeniable progress, but we cannot ignore that millions remain excluded from opportunity and dignity at work,” ILO chief Gilbert Houngbo said in a statement.
“Social justice is not only a moral imperative – it is essential for economic security, social cohesion and peace.”
The report listed significant achievements over the past three decades, including the halving of the rate of child labor among five-to 14-year-olds, from 20 to 10 percent.
The world had reduced the share of the global population impacted by extreme poverty, from 39 to 10 percent, and raised primary school completion rates by 17 percentage points, it said.
But the ILO also warned of “stark and persistent” problems.
Efforts to ensure better-quality jobs have stalled, with 58 percent of the global labor force still in informal employment – down just two percentage points since 1995, the report said.
The number of people in forced labour had increased, it said.
And while unemployment rates had reached record lows, especially in wealthier countries, the ILO cautioned that “job quality has eroded in many contexts … undermining economic security, protection and rights.”
The dramatic educational improvements seen in recent decades meanwhile “are not always translating into jobs to which people aspire,” it warned.
The report found that the gender labour force participation gap had over two decades narrowed by just three percentage points, to 24 percent.
And “at current rates, it will take a century to close the global gender pay gap,” the ILO said.
The agency maintained that falling trust in institutions reflected “growing frustration that effort is not being rewarded fairly.”
“Unless action is taken to strengthen the social contract, this erosion of trust could undermine the legitimacy of democratic systems and global cooperation,” it warned.
