executives and financial sector workers in 2010 and 2011.^37 Given
the severity and persistence of unemployment across much of the
world, inequality in earnings is likely to be perpetuated through
2011 and beyond.
Young men and women have been disproportionately affected by
unemployment since the onset of the crisis. Earlier experiences
have shown that it takes, on average, over 11 years for youth
unemployment to return to pre-recession levels (ILO 2010a:13).
According to ILO estimates, youth unemployment has risen by
nearly eight million globally since the onset of the crisis in 2007.
Moreover, the percent increase in youth unemployment globally
was over twice that for the overall working population. However,
this dramatic increase masks an even more striking trend towards
decreasing youth participation in labour markets and growing
informality and precarity of youth employment (ILO 2010b). ILO
further reports that young women have more difficulty than young
men in finding work.
7.B. High commodity prices
Second, households have been dealing with unabatedly high food
prices since 2008. According to the FAO’s Food Price Index, global
food prices surpassed the peak levels of the 2007-08 food crisis in
January 2011 and continued to set new record highs in February
and March 2011. At the local level, UNICEF recent analysis finds
that food prices closely trailed those in global food markets during
the latter half of 2010; it also found that domestic food prices
remained alarmingly high compared to pre-crisis levels as of
November 2010 (Ortiz et al. 2011). As high food prices continue to
erode disposable income, most poor families have already
exhausted available coping strategies, such as eating fewer meals,
cutting health expenditures, increasing debt and working longer
hours in the informal sector. Given that poor families spend a
much higher share of their income on food than wealthier groups,
the link between higher local food prices and inequality is clear. For
(^37) See Wall Street Journal, “On Street, Pay Vaults to Record Altitude,” on 23
February 2011, and Wall Street Journal, “Executive Bonuses Bounce Back,” on
18 March 2011.