50 richest women in the world in 2021

Some 11.9 percent of global billionaires are women, according to a new census by Wealth-X. 

Using a real-time list of Forbes billionaires, visual capitalist investigated the net worth of the world's 50 richest women and which country they come from.

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the richest woman in the world, and her family own 33 percent of the shares of L'Oréal SA, a French brand of personal care. She is also the founder's granddaughter.

L'Oréal and the Bettencourt Meyers family pledged $226 million (€200 million) in April 2019 to rebuild the cathedral of Notre Dame after its catastrophic fire.

Alice Walton of the Walmart, also the richest family in the world, comes in second. Along with her brothers, they own over 50 percent of the company's stock. In 2020 fiscal year, Walmart raked in $524 billion in sales.

Jacqueline Mars and her four granddaughters, heiresses to a slice of the Mars Inc fortune in candy and pet food, are another family to make the list. 

            
In the early days of turning Amazon into an e-commerce behemoth, MacKenzie Scott was deeply active. She has been involved in fields ranging from bookkeeping and accounting to securing the first freight deal with the group. The headlines were caught by her high-profile divorce from Jeff Bezos, in particular because she acquired ownership of 4% of the outstanding shares of Amazon which is an astounding $38.3 billion, propelling her to the third position of the world's richest women.

However, MacKenzie Scott has more altruistic projects in mind for this wealth. In 2020, she gave away $5.8 billion towards causes such as climate change and racial equality in just four months and is a signatory on the Giving Pledge.
In the East, Yang Huiyan became the richest woman in Asia after inheriting 70 percent of shares in the land production business Country Garden Holdings. The company went public in 2007, raising $1.6 billion in its IPO.

To aid frontline health workers during the pandemic, Country Garden Holdings set up robotic, automated buffet stations to safely serve medical staff in Wuhan, China.

While the 50 richest women in the world have certainly made progress, the overall tier of billionaires is still very much a boys' club. One thing that also factors into this could be the way this wealth is spent.
 
As many female billionaires inherited their wealth, a large share is more inclined to contribute to charitable causes where they can use their money to make an impact.