EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Inequalities and Unfair Income Distribution in Japan

Sayaka Sakoda

World Journal of Applied Economics, 2020, vol. 6, issue 1, 91-98

Abstract: There has been a debate about what measurement is most appropriate for measuring inequality because the classical index does not distinguish between what is fair and unfair distribution of income. In this empirical study, the "Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian Theory" is applied for the case of Japan. Our paper firstly tracks the historical evolution of inequalities and concludes that the Japanese accept pre-tax income inequality because they believe their socio-economic class is determined by luck. Secondly, illustrating the Unfairness Lorenz Curve by gender shows that females face more unfairness than males: the pre-tax income of middle-income males increases slightly compared to the fair-income group from 2010 to 2013. However,the opposite is true for females in the bottom and middle classes. Considering there already exists a gender wage gap in Japan, it is necessary to take action to reduce inequality.

Keywords: Income inequality; Fairness; Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journal.econworld.org/index.php/econworld/article/view/127/48 (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:ana:journl:v:6:y:2020:i:1:p:91-98

DOI: 10.22440/wjae.6.1.6

Access Statistics for this article

World Journal of Applied Economics is currently edited by Unal Tongur

More articles in World Journal of Applied Economics from WERI-World Economic Research Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Unal Tongur ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:ana:journl:v:6:y:2020:i:1:p:91-98