Is There an Income Polarization Among Self-Employed? Dynamics of the Income Distribution and the High Income of Self-Employed and Employees

Abstract

Can a polarization of the income of self-employed persons be discovered? How did the distribution of income in general and especially higher income of self-employed and employed persons develop since the nineties? These are the main questions we want to examine in this contribution.The subject of our discussion is the comparison between the situations of self-employed and the employed persons – the central groups on the labour market that have an extraordinary impact on the whole economy. Our data basis, the anonymised individual data of the Income Tax Statistic, is especially meaningful for the seldom analysed self-employed persons and people with high income. This is due to its census character and its detailed information about tax and income.We study the actual income allocation in general, for self-employed persons for employees. Then we focus on the dynamic of income allocation between 1992 and 2003 and present results on high income and income richness during time. With this comprehensive empirical background, we are capable to give an answer to the question of polarization.