Wealth gap
Description:
The wealth gap (economic and income inequality) concerns interregional (Europe/Asia) or intraregional divergences (within Europe) of wealth levels due to the distinct growth of individual income, social security systems or the differences in educational systems, etc. While the average income per capita in emerging countries like China significantly increased over the last decades, there is still a significant absolute difference to the average European income per capita. In addition, and although the average income level might increase, one should keep in mind that especially in rapidly growing countries like China, an increasing wealth gap decreases the social cohesion;
The Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income or consumption expenditure among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. While the Gini coefficient of the equalised disposable income for the new EU12 Member States decreased between 2005 and 2012 by 2.9 points (showing that the wealth gap within these countries significantly decreased), the Gini index for the EU15 slightly increased by 0.8 (Eurostat 2014c). Furthermore, from 2010 onwards the Gini index of the new EU12 Member States (30.2) fell under the index of the EU15 with 30.5. It becomes obvious that the European intraregional wealth gap further closed.