GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in Belgium

Tim Rie and Ive Marx
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Tim Rie: Centrum voor Sociaal Beleid Herman Deleeck, Universiteit Antwerpen, http://www.centreforsocialpolicy.eu

GINI Country Reports from AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies

Abstract: Against the backdrop of growing income inequalities across industrialized countries, Belgium is a remarkable outlier. While breaks in series and different data sources call for a reasonable degree of caution, there is no indication that disposable household income inequalities among the Belgian population have increased substantially over the past thirty years. In this respect Belgium can represent a crucial case for the GINI project: it is one of few countries where the ‘key variable’ remained stable over time.Turning to the ‘national story of inequality’, stable income inequality may be considered remarkable given the political and economic context . Belgium has experienced a number of major shifts since the early 1980s. Its economy is among the most open and globalized in the world, with economic activity strongly geared towards trade and logistics. Over the last three decades, value added and (to a lesser degree) employment have shifted from manufacturing towards services. From an international perspective, such shifts have often been accompanied by skill-biased technological change and growing wage inequalities.

Date: 2013-03
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