An Investigation into Income Distribution in Zanjan Province: A Case Study of Rural Households in Abhar County

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate income distribution in Zanjan Province, for which the statistics of cost-income of the households in rural areas of Abhar County were used. They were available in the Statistical Center of Iran. In order to measure income distribution, the indicators of Lorenz curve, the Gini coefficient, the proportion of high-income groups to low-income groups, as well as the comparison of decades and quintiles are described below. The results indicated that 20% of the richest households in the rural community of Abhar County had more than half of the revenue, and four poor decades had less than 10% of revenue. The richest farmer docile had an income about 28 times as high as the poorest decade, and the richest non-farmer docile had an income about 74 times as high as the poorest non-farmer docile. The results of the Gini coefficient of the two occupational groups suggested that the Gini coefficient of people working in the agricultural sector was equal to 0.55, and that it was 0.56 for non-agricultural workers by comparison. The results of correlation analysis indicated a negative relationship between the age of household’s head and their annual income. Moreover education level of household’s head had a positive relationship with their annual income. In addition, there was no significant difference among annual incomes of households heads with different occupational groups.