IB Digital Society 5.1A Local and Global Inequalities Notes

5.1A Local and Global Inequalities

Inequality as a Global Challenge

1. This is HL-only material: do digital systems widen or narrow gaps in income, food, and healthcare, both within and between countries?
2. It counts as a challenge because it is large and persistent: the richest tenth holds most wealth, and a child's odds are set largely by where they are born. Digital systems shift those odds at the margins without changing the underlying structure.
3. Key concepts: power (who reaches money, food, and care) and space (inequality is geographic: rural village vs capital, poor country vs rich).
4. Approach: examine the challenge through money, food, and health, then weigh each intervention by what it does, its type, how well it works, and whether to recommend it (the Paper 3 sequence).

Money, Work, and the Digital Economy

1. Digital systems can concentrate wealth: a few global platforms capture huge value, and returns from data and automation flow to those who own the systems.
2. They can also open doors: mobile money lets the unbanked save, send, and borrow from a basic phone, and digital cash transfers move money straight to the poorest.
   1. Example: GiveDirectly sends funds by mobile transfer to people in extreme poverty; repeated randomised trials find recipients mostly spend on food, schooling, and small businesses.
3. Through power, the platform owner still sets the terms, though a phone and a financial record hand some control back to the user. Contested: the gains are real for some people, but most wealth keeps concentrating at the top, which can widen the gap.

Feeding People and Digital Systems

1. The second face is food insecurity: hundreds of millions cannot reliably get enough safe, nutritious food.