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The pandemic increases inequality between the rich and the poor

In the spring of 2020, most countries and a lot of people around the world had faces the same problem: The pandemic. After the incident, share prices in most markets went down and many countries entered the recession period. In fact, due to the strict restrictions, most citizens around the globe could not go out often or avoided doing so even though they could. As a result, hotels, restaurants and shops were not able to operate regularly and this trend is still continuing in the beginning of 2021. On the other hand, many national governments had decided to introduce economic stimulus package. The share price of some IT companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Zoom soared up in fact. As a result, the inequality between the rich and the poor became widen so far. The data shows that the number of extreme poverty, which mainly refers to an income below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day, is increasing after the pandemic. Of course, it is difficult for each person to improve our society or to solve our social issues, but it better for him/her to take this trend into consideration. If we think of this trend is indifferent to ourselves, it can be huge risk. This is because we never predict what will be happened in the future so that preparation makes us more resilient. In this sense, lifelong learning is not voluntary but mandatory act.

Lifelong learning is more paid attention after the pandemic

We will discuss the definition of lifelong learning in this media in the future. In this article, we focus on why the pandemic makes us need lifelong learning more than before. We guess there are three reasons: Unemployment, Time and Technology.

First, after the pandemic, the unemployment rate in each country is rising. For example, yearly unemployment rate change between 2019 and 2020 shows that the number in the US is from 3.7% to 8.9% and that of the UK is from 3.8% to 5.4%, according to International Monetary Fund. It means that more people experienced losing their job and they had to find a new job so as to earn money. At the same time, many people have felt the fact that reskilling is very crucial in uncertain time. However, how do we acquire new skills? When we try to get new skills, we have to invest in a certain period of time to do.

Second, the pandemic forced us to work or study at home. As a result, people enjoyed more free time to do something since they did not waste time for commuting. This additional time gave them new opportunities to spend with their family, to enjoy their hobbies and to learn new skills.

Finally, when we did work or study remotely, we made use of video conference technology such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. It means that we have noticed the possibility that how new technologies enhance or change our ways of life or working. In other words, we can feel both opportunities and risks of new technologies. In addition to this, new technologies gives more chances to learn new things. For instance, even though we do not pay anything at all, we can learn new languages or new concepts through YouTube.

If we are accustomed to lifelong learning, we will be more employable people. Therefore, lifelong learning might widen the inequality between the rich and the poor more and more. We can conclude that lifelong learning is mandatory act.