The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report has revealed which countries are truly the richest when nations are ranked according to their median or average per-capita wealth. Switzerland and Luxembourg top the list in average wealth, while Iceland and Luxembourg lead in median wealth.
When nations are ranked according to the size of their economies and total net worth, the United States typically comes in first, followed by China, Japan, and Germany.
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However, when nations are ranked according to their median or average per-capita wealth, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz explains below, certain nations top the list.
Switzerland was the richest nation in the world based on the two measures, with an average per-capita wealth of about US$685,000 for each adult.
When considering median per-capita wealth, which measures the wealth of an individual living in a nation with an equal number of richer and poorer residents, Iceland comes in first place, with an estimated $413,000 in value possessed by this hypothetical individual.
Because per-capita assets take into account the fact that smaller nations with fewer inhabitants will always accumulate less wealth overall, they may present a fairer image of a nation’s financial situation.
However, averages do not account for the distribution of wealth within a society.
But as a nation’s assets are distributed more evenly, median wealth rises. Credit Suisse data somewhat supports the notion that Iceland and other Scandinavian nations have more evenly distributed wealth. In terms of per-capita median wealth, Norway is ranked tenth, whereas Denmark is ranked seventh.
On average, the United States ranks third among nations in terms of wealth per capita, while its median wealth only places it in the fifteenth place.
Conversely, Belgium is ranked third in terms of median wealth but thirteenth in terms of average wealth, indicating that it is a more equitable nation when it comes to the distribution of wealth.
The United States ranks seventh in terms of the magnitude of the difference between mean and median wealth, with an average worth that is more than five times, or 512%, higher than the median wealth. No other significant nation in the world surpasses this, except Brazil, where the figure is 517%.
The nations that topped the list of median wealth, Iceland, Luxembourg, and Belgium, have some of the narrowest relative differences between mean and median wealth. Slovakia and Slovenia are two more Eastern European nations that may not have the greatest mean wealth rates, but they do have some of the narrowest disparities. Some of the poorer nations are South Africa, Nigeria, Russia, and the previously mentioned Brazil, yet there are still significant differences between average and median wealth.
