Дифференциация зарплат рабочих и служащих Сибирского края (1925–1929 гг.): децильные коэффициенты и индекс Джини

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify specific features differentiating incomes of the part of the urban population of Siberia whose incomes were determined mainly by the size of wages. These are workers and employees of state enterprises and organizations. The chronological framework is the second half of the 1920s. Wage inequality is considered on the basis of data on its differentiation among workers in all branches of industry and office employees. An informative source for studying the issues of wage differentiation of workers in Siberian Krai is Byulleten’ statistiki truda Sibirskogo kraya [Bulletin of Labor Statistics of Siberian Krai] published in 1926–1928 and its continuation Byulleten’ statistiki truda i promyshlennosti [Bulletin of Labor and Industry Statistics] published in 1928– 1929. Their data confirm the high level of Siberian statistics of the NEP period, which has already been stated by researchers. Each issue of the Bulletin, in addition to statistical tables, charts and graphs, contains detailed comments by experts on the methods of data collection and processing. Based on the source information, I have formed two data arrays. The first of them is related to the differentiation of workers’ wages presented in the form of an interval scale. Surveys were conducted once a year in March for 4 years – from 1926 to 1929. As for the second set of data (those covering employees), they are available only for March 1926 and March 1927. During the study all available data were entered into appropriate tables and processed in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. The decile coefficient and the Gini index were also calculated. For 4 years, the inequality in the wages of workers decreased significantly. The decile coefficient fell from 3.56 to 2.50, while the Gini index fell from 0.25 to 0.19. Among employees, there was a slight increase in the level of inequality. The situation with wage differentiation gradually stabilized over the entire period and remained unchanged in 1928–1929 having reached its limit. This indicates the victory of the leveling trend in the wage policy towards industrial workers in Siberian Krai.