Global Wealth Pyramid: A look at the household wealth and average wealth per adult in the world in 2021

Despite the pandemic still affecting numerous segments of the economy, the global household wealth increased by 9.8 percent in 2021, revealed in the 13^th Global Wealth Report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI). Asset prices bolstered household wealth over the past year, with the US, China and India leading the race in terms of the cumulative increase in household wealth. Household wealth grew by $19.5 trillion in the US, followed by $11.2 trillion growth in China. Canada followed with $1.8 trillion growth, India with $1.5 trillion and Australia with $1.4 trillion.

A massive asset rally along with historically low-interest rates allowed household wealth to increase over 2021, even as 2022 is most likely to see a sharp slowdown in the growth of household wealth due to steadily increasing interest rates and lowered asset prices.

“2021 was a bumper year for household wealth driven by widespread gains in share prices and a favourable environment created by central bank policies in 2020 to lower interest rates, but at the cost of inflationary pressures,” the report stated.

Wealth per adult also grew by 8.4 percent to reach an average of $87,489 at year-end 2021, even as Africa, Europe, India and Latin America only accounted for 11.1 percent of global wealth growth combined. India was also one of the countries where the average wealth of women declined in 2021.

Switzerland emerged as the country with the highest average wealth per adult at $696,600, an increase of $25,040 in 2021. The US saw the second-highest average wealth per adult with $579,050. Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand rounded off the top five. In terms of the highest median wealth per adult, often a better indicator of what the vernacular ‘average’ wealth would look like, Switzerland didn’t even make it into the top 20 while the US fell to rank 18 with a median income of $93,270. Australia with a median wealth of $273,900 per adult was the highest in 2021, followed by Belgium, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Denmark.

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