Latin America has for a long time held the dubious honor of being the most unequal region in the world: the gap between rich and poor was the highest on the continent, affecting a whole host of factors ranging from economic growth rates to teenage pregnancy to crime.

But not all is lost. Recent trends have shown that things are improving. Based on the Gini index — the most commonly used measure of inequality, which takes into account the percentages of total income against the number of recipients and expressed the difference between poorest and richest — Latin America had an average of 54 in the year 2000 (where 0 shows absolute equality and 100 is perfectly unequal), compared to 30 in the European Union or 46 in Asia. A decade later, the number has decreased to 50, the Economist reports.

In the last 10 years, the Gini declined in 14 Latin American countries, with Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Panama leading the decrease. Nevertheless, Brazil shows one of the worst inequality situations in the world (54.7), after Honduras (57.0) and Colombia (55.9).

Several reasons may explain this improvement. A fundamental one, as signaled by Shannon O’Neil from the Council of Foreign Relations, is […]