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

60 The Distribution of Income in IrelandTable 5.7: Gini Coefficient for Equivalised DisposableIncome among Persons in ECHP Wave 1, 1993, and Wave 2,1994, Modified OECD ScaleDenmarkNetherlandsBelgiumGermanyLuxembourgFranceItalySpainIrelandUKGreecePortugalWavel(1993)0.220.270.280.290.310.310.320.340.340.350.350.39Ranking123455788101012GiniWave 2(1994)0.240.290.280.290.280.290.310.320.330.320.340.375.3 EARLIER COMPARATIVE INCOME DISTRIBUTIONRESULTSRankingHaving presented figures for Ireland's income distributioncompared with other EU countries in the mid-1990s in thefc^HP, it is useful to compare these with results from earliercross-country comparative exercises. The most useful point ofcomparison is the comprehensive study of income inequalitybyESS TAtkinson ' Rainwater and Smeeding (1995) for theOECD. This was based primarily on data from the LuxembourgIncome Study (US) database and focused on surveys carriedout between 1984-1988. The income concept, recipient unit andaccounting period employed was similar to that used in thetCHP, the mam focus being on disposable household incomer^m e ?iTl r 3 y6ar WlthOUt mcludm 9 for ^ p l e imputedent. (Unlike the ECHP, the datasets in LIS come from nationalmharmonisedfcTn?^ ^^ source: areas where datafor particular countries departed from the desired measure of142424781081112Ireland's Income Distribution in International Perspective 61income or the household unit are discussed in Atkinson, Rainwaterand Smeeding, Chapter 3.) They present results on thedistribution of income for nine out of the eleven countries coveredin this study — they did not have data for Denmark orGreece — using the square root equivalence scale and personweighting.These can be compared with the figures presented above,and for convenience we focus in Table 5.8 on the Gini coefficient.There are major differences for some countries betweenthe two sets of results. As summarised in the Gini coefficient,the level of inequality in the ECHP was a good deal higher thanin the Atkinson, Rainwater and Smeeding (1995) results forGermany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the UK, Spain and Portugal.For the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Italy the ECHP estimatesare similar to those in Atkinson et al. It is known from nationalstudies that the level of income inequality did indeed risebetween the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s in some EU countries,notably the UK. On this basis the increase in the UK Ginicoefficient appears broadly consistent with external evidence(see, for example, Goodman, Johnson and Webb, 1997). 2 Someincrease in inequality in Belgium up to 1992 is suggested bynational sources (see Cantillon et al. 1994), but not as great asthe gap between the Atkinson, Rainwater and Smeeding andECHP figures. 3 It would, however, be surprising if the level ofinequality had increased in Luxembourg and Portugal by asmuch as this comparison suggests, particularly when the Atkinson,Smeeding and Rainwater results for Portugal refer to1989/90.2 The latter cannot be compared directly with either Atkinson et al. or theECHP results because a different equivalence scale is used.Cantillon et al. (1994) show the Gini coefficient increasing from 0.225 in 1985to 0.237 in 1992, using a different equivalence scale.