The Distribution of Income in Ireland (2000) - Combat Poverty Agency

56 The Distribution of Income in Irelandbroadly similar picture to the Gini, though with some variationin the individual rankings. Since we have not yet adjusted incomefor household size these rankings cannot be taken as reflectingthe distribution of command over resources, livingstandards or welfare, but they provide a point of departure incomparing income distributions across the countries.We now adjust household incomes to take differences insize and composition into account. Following recent Eurostatpractice in such comparisons we employ the modified OECDscale as our central scale — that is, the first adult in the householdis given a value of 1, each additional adult a value of 0.5,and each child a value of 0.3. To assess the overall sensitivity ofthese results we also use the so-called OECD scale (1/0.7/0.5)and the square root of household size scale employed in anumber of comparative income distribution studies. We focuson the distribution of equivalised income among persons, eachindividual being attributed the equivalised disposable incomeof their household.Table 5.4 shows decile shares in equivalised disposable incomeamong persons in the ECHP, using the modified OECDequivalence scale. As was the case for Ireland, equivalisationproduces a more equal distribution, the share of the bottomdecile is now higher in all countries than it was with unadjustedincome, and the share going to the top decile is consistentlylower. The former ranges from about 2 per cent in Greece andPortugal up to 4 l /i per cent in Denmark, while the latter rangesfrom 20 per cent in Denmark up to 29 per cent in Portugal. Thebottom decile in Ireland now has a relatively high share, at over3 per cent, but at 26 per cent the top decile also has a ratherhigh share, similar to the UK.Summary inequality measures for Wave 1 incomeequivalised using the modified OECD scale are shown in Table5.5. The rankings in terms of the Gini measure are generallysimilar to those for unadjusted income, although Denmarkrather than the Netherlands now has the most equal distributionand Portugal and Greece now have the least equal distributions,followed by the UK and then IrelandIreland's Income Distribution in International Perspective 575o>"1spJ)U£is§S20)a.R (Q1•—13osable1\$tl%•aI•5\1fcA1\5"O60o0)CO«—1t>11.5niXICO_.. i•a1o a..5«aCO3o1•o3"3Hga>K3&"3 COd1M£Q>,io>OacsuaQa>i—iCDsiedCOegCOt-«egcotocooCOriCO• **COcdr~*t"HCOcoTTo• *CO• *inCOoCO00txCOocriegoSqCT5COoS• *o>t-«oSCOCDCDod• *dCOdqr—i©>-*codcodCOdCDd•—4CDdCOoCOdt-««edCOesii—it-