Equivalised household income inequality in Łódzkie Voivodship

Abstract

The analysis of income distribution in the regional perspective is an important issue in the context of the cohesion policy implemented in the EU countries, one of the postulates of which is smoothing differences in the standard of living and liquidation of poverty The aim of the study presented in the paper is to determine changes in the distribution of equivalent household incomes, and in particular the changes in the degree of inequality and the level of poverty and richness in Łódzkie Voivodship. This voivodship is an interesting object for research, as in the period of the political transformation it underwent many changes which influenced the economic situation of households. The main variable of interest was household equivalent income which was determined using three power equivalence scales. To estimate the inequalities, the study applied measures sensitive to income disparities in different parts of the distribution, namely the Gini coefficient in the central part of the distribution, the index of disparity in the extreme parts of the distribution, and the Zenga index, sensitive to inequalities at each point of the distribution. The levels of poverty and richness, i.e. phenomena related to income inequality, were analysed in the same way. Income distribution in Łódzkie Voivodship was next compared with the same indicator for the whole Poland. All the calculations were based on data for the years 2016–2020 drawn from the Household Budget Survey conducted annually by Statistics Poland. The obtained results indicate increasing income inequality in the period under consideration, with the visible discrepancy between the extremal decile groups. In 2020, the inequlities became wider; moreover, the share of households experiencing poverty increased, while the share of relatively affluent households decreased. Overally, the poverty level was higher, and the richness level was lower in the studied period in Łódzkie Voivodship than in the whole country. The analysis of the sensitivity of the indices of inequality, poverty and richness to the change in the equivalence scale demonstrates that the choice of the scale flexibility parameter affects the level of the analysed measures, but does not significantly affect the assessment of the changes in these parameters over time.