Growth of the Bottom 40: Monitoring Inclusive Growth

Growth in the Bottom 40 measures the extent to which economic growth is inclusive by focusing on household consumption or income growth among the poorest population relative to the population as whole. It is the annualized growth rate in the average consumption or income per capita of the poorest 40 percent (the bottom 40) of the population in a country.  Promoting shared prosperity is indicator 10.1.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Because this indicator monitors the progress of the bottom 40 and how the less well-off can benefit from economic growth, it is relevant even in higher-income countries, where extreme poverty is much lower.[1]

Explore the latest Shared Prosperity data

The October 2024 update of the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP) is the 14th edition of the database since its launch. This new edition revises the figures released in April 2024. Indicator coverage is revised to include 88 of the world’s economies, which are roughly comparable for circa 2016-2021.

Learn more about the 14^th Edition of the GDSP in our brief.

Download the latest shared prosperity data

(available in .xlsx).

Download historical shared prosperity data

All historical spells

_{[1]  The GDSP is updated in line with the updates to the poverty estimates.}

Last Updated: April 2025

The number of economies^[2] included in the GDSP depends on the availability of household surveys in the World Bank’s Global Monitoring Database (GMD) as of October 2024.^[3] Shared prosperity is harder to monitor than global poverty. Whereas one household survey is needed to compute poverty, two comparable household surveys are needed to compute shared prosperity. Moreover, these surveys must be conducted around the same years in all economies to measure shared prosperity for roughly the same period. These stricter requirements mean shared prosperity cannot be measured in some of the most deprived economies, which often lack sufficient survey data (a more detailed discussion can be found here). Table 1 below shows how GDSP coverage varies between updates.^[4]

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_{[2] The term country, used interchangeably with economy, does not imply political independence but refers to any territory for which authorities report separate social or economic statistics.}

_{[3] The Global Monitoring Database (GMD) is the World Bank’s repository of multitopic income and expenditure household surveys used to monitor global poverty and shared prosperity. The household survey data are typically collected by national statistical offices in each country, and then compiled, processed, and harmonized by the Data for Goals (D4G) team in the Poverty Global Practice.}

_{[4] The largest number of economies covered was in the fourth edition of the GDSP in 2017 (which was used in World Bank, 2020), with 93 economies.}

Table 1. Country coverage across editions of the GDSP, by region

^{Source: World Bank compilation based on data of GDSP (Global Database of Shared Prosperity), World Bank, Washington, DC, April 2024.}

_{Note: AM=Annual meetings in October; SM=Spring meetings in April. EAP = East Asia and Pacific; ECA = Europe and Central Asia; LAC = Latin America and Caribbean; MNA = Middle East and North Africa; OHI=Other High-Income countries; SAR = South Asia; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa.}

Survey data are selected according to two criteria: (i) to match the time periods as closely as possible across all countries, while including the most recent data; and (ii) to ensure the widest possible coverage of countries, across regions and income levels. Comparability is assessed according to the database available here. Although 170 countries have an international poverty estimate in the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), significantly fewer have a shared prosperity estimate due to the more stringent data requirements referenced above.

Overall, the GDSP now includes coverage for approximately 4.4 billion people, or 56 percent of the world’s population in 2021. However, outside of Europe and Central Asia, the total number of countries with shared prosperity data is low relative to the total countries in each region (Table 2).

Table 2. Data coverage, Global Database of Shared Prosperity 14th edition, circa 2016–2021

_{Sources: 14th edition of the GDSP Global Database of Shared Prosperity); Poverty and Inequality Portal (PIP); https://pip.worldbank.org/ ; World Development Indicators (WDI); http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi}

_{Note: Population data are from 2021. The list of IDA countries and economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations is from fiscal year (FY) 2024. Number of economies with poverty rate counts economies that reported poverty estimates in 2012 or later. SP = shared prosperity indicator. Averages across economies are simple averages, not population weighted.}

Last Updated: October 2024

Looking Ahead: The Global Prosperity Gap

In 2023, the World Bank adopted two new measures to monitor shared prosperity: the Global Prosperity Gap (GPG) and the number of countries with high inequality. The GPG is defined as the average factor by which incomes must be multiplied to attain the prosperity standard of $25 per day. This new indicator was developed to address several limitations of growth in the bottom 40 as a measure of shared prosperity. The new measure can be aggregated to a global estimate, gives greater weight to the poorest people rather than just tracking the 40th percentile, and can be calculated using a single round of data rather than requiring two comparable surveys. For a more detailed discussion of the Global Prosperity Gap, including its methodology, implications, and the complementary measure of high inequality countries, see Kraay ⓡ al. 2023 and the Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 (World Bank, 2024).

While data for the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP) will continue to be maintained and reported on the Poverty and Inequality Platform, this will be the final update of this site.

The Team

The Global Database on Shared Prosperity was created by the Global Poverty Working Group (GPWG), an interdisciplinary technical working group established to improve the quality and frequency of poverty and inequality data, comprising members from the Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Development Economics Vice Presidency Data Group (DECDG) and Research Group (DECRG). 

Citation and Attribution:

When using Shared Prosperity data, please cite as: Global Database of Shared Prosperity (13th edition, circa 2016-2021), World Bank, Washington, DC. 2024. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database -of-shared-prosperity

Data Source

The Global Monitoring Database (GMD) is the World Bank’s repository of multitopic income and expenditure household surveys used to monitor global poverty and shared prosperity. The household survey data are typically collected by national statistical offices in each country, and then compiled, processed, and harmonized. The process is coordinated by the Data for Goals (D4G) team and supported by the six regional statistics teams in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. The Global Poverty & Inequality Data Team (GPID) in the Development Economics Data Group (DECDG) also contributes historical data from before 1990 and recent survey data from the Luxemburg Income Study (LIS). Selected variables have been harmonized to the extent possible such that levels and trends in poverty and other key sociodemographic attributes can be reasonably compared across and within countries over time. The GMD’s harmonized microdata are currently used in the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), the World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Measure (MPM), the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP), and Poverty and Shared Prosperity Reports. Additional information on the latest country poverty data can be found in Castaneda et al., 2024.

Contacts

Database and Methodology:

Data for Goals (D4G) at data4goals@worldbank.org

Media inquiries:

Paul Clare, Senior External Affairs Officer at pclare@worldbank.org