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GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in Poland

Author

Listed:
  • M. Brzeziński
  • B. Jancewicz
  • Natalia Letki

    (PGPE Project, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw)

Abstract

Most inequality measures and income concepts show a moderate, but steady growth in inequality in Poland since early 1990s. Inequality of market income is much higher than inequality in terms of other income concepts. In general, absolute poverty declined from 13.2% in 1993 to 3.9% in 2010. The situation is different with relative poverty rates, which were increasing up to 2004. Dynamics of consumption inequality is similar to the dynamics of income inequality – both types of measures show that inequality was rising steadily, but that the overall inequality growth was rather modest. Overall, it seems that Poland is more unequal with respect to wealth than most of Western countries, but less unequal than many other transition countries. Both individual and household based indices show that labour market participation declined. At the same time all data sources agree that there was a substantial increase in earnings inequality. However, educational attainment has improved significantly over the last decade. The share of tertiary graduates almost doubled since 1997 (rising from 7,7% to 13,8% in 2008 year).

Suggested Citation

  • M. Brzeziński & B. Jancewicz & Natalia Letki, 2013. "GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in Poland," GINI Country Reports poland, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:aia:ginicr:poland
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    File URL: https://www1.feb.uva.nl/aias/Poland.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Ewa Genge, 2021. "LC and LC-IRT Models in the Identification of Polish Households with Similar Perception of Financial Position," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-22, April.
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    5. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2017. "Inequality in Poland: Estimating the whole distribution by g-percentile 1983-2015," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-02797780, HAL.

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