The annual Global Wealth Report published by Swiss private bank UBS has found that adults in the Scandinavian kingdom have the 6th highest mean and median wealth in the world. Internationally, global wealth has declined for the first time since 2008. Denmark is reported the 6th wealthiest country in the world.
The annual UBS Global Wealth Report 2024, published in partnership with Credit Suisse for the first time since the two banks merged 1st July 2024, looks at wealth statistics from the world’s major economies in 2023.
With its report, the bank aims to provide “the most comprehensive available information on global household wealth,” defining “wealth” as “the value of financial assets plus real assets (principally housing) owned by households, minus their debts.”
This includes assets like savings, insurance, bonds, stocks, and pensions. UBS calculates the total value of all of these financial assets for each country and divides the overall figure by the country’s population to determine the average wealth of citizens in US dollars.
According to these criteria, the 2024 report found Switzerland to be the wealthiest nation on Earth, with adults in the alpine nation owning a mean of 709.612 dollars in 2023. Luxembourg and Hong Kong followed, where the adult population respectively held 607,524 and 582,000 dollars worth of wealth each last year.
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Related: The State of Denmark 2024
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Wealth disparity is very pronounced, the study stresses
“Western Europe is a mosaic of wealth growth, not a unit. Wildly different outcomes in individual wealth growth are not limited to countries in different continents and at different stages of economic development, however. Even within Western Europe, the evolution of wealth growth could hardly be more diverse. Indeed, by this measure, the continent is more of a mosaic than a unit, which is all the more remarkable given that Western European countries already shared mature and developed economies in 2008 and in most cases were even part of the same trade bloc. Europe’s sovereign debt crisis is one reason for these widely different trajectories in wealth growth,” the report reads.
The rise in wealth that went unnoticed
Some of these findings on individual wealth will come as no surprise to most readers, but others may well be highly unexpected. Many people may not recognize their own country. They may feel like the reported growth or decline in wealth has passed them by without them noticing. There is a good reason for this, namely the difference between average and median wealth. In most markets in the report’s sample, average wealth in 2023 is significantly higher than median wealth per adult. The former exceeds the latter by a factor of four in Switzerland, by more than a factor of two in France and Mexico, almost three in Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan and by a factor of five in the United States, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
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Related: Six Explanations Why Nordic Countries Rank High on Happiness and Finance Indexes
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Inequality since 2008 – an unequal picture
Equality, or the lack of it, is a prominent topic of discussions about wealth. Since 2008, inequality in North America has slightly decreased, while it has gone up in Latin America as well as most of Eastern Europe and Asia, with the notable exceptions of South Korea and Hong Kong SAR. Inequality is measured with the help of the Gini coefficient, a number between zero and 100. A reading of zero means exact equality, i.e., a scenario where everybody owns exactly the same amount of wealth, while a reading of 100 means that one individual owns all of the assets and everybody else owns zero, i.e., absolute inequality
Sweden has increased its inequality by 1.3% since 2008, while this figure for Denmark is 11.3%.
Number of USD Millionaires – Current and Forecast
Looking ahead, the report expects wealth per adult to keep growing in almost all markets of the sample. The report further forecasts emerging markets’ share of global wealth to break through the 30% barrier in 2024. In some markets, the number of USD millionaires will increase by up to 50% over the next five years, according to estimates.
Sweden is expected to grow its number of USD Millionaires from 575,426 in 2023 to 703,216 in 2028, an increase of 22%. Norway is expected to grow its numbers of millionaires by 22%, from 253,085 to 308,247.
UBS report: The 10 wealthiest countries in the world
- Switzerland (709,612)
- Luxembourg (607 524)
- Hong Kong (582 000)
- United States (564 862)
- Australia (546 184)
- Denmark (448 802)
- New Zealand (408 231)
- Singapore (397 708)
- Norway (382 575)
- Canada (.375 800)
For more information about the study, and to see how other nations faired, check out UBS’ website.
Denmark is Reported the 6th Wealthiest Country in the World, compiled by Tor Kjolberg
The research projects that, going forward, nearly all of the sampled markets will see rising wealth per adult.