The Evolution of Income Inequality in Germany and Switzerland since the Turn of the Millennium

Markus Grabka and Ursina Kuhn

No 464, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: This paper presents and compares trends in income inequality in Switzerland and Germany from 2000 to 2009 using harmonized data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). Whereas in Germany inequality has increased substantially during this period, in Switzerland inequality in market incomes has increased onlymarginally and inequality in disposable incomes has decreased slightly. Economic and demographic indicators suggest that labor market participation - but not economic growth, globalization, or sectoral change - are potential explanations. The decomposition of inequality reveals the effects of Germany's slightly older population and smaller household sizes, as well as the impact of educational expansion and government redistribution.

Keywords: Income inequality; subgroup decomposition; income stratification; income mobility; SOEP; SHP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 p.
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.407154.de/diw_sp0464.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp464

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().