Our World
in Data
Data

Percentage reduction in Gini coefficient

See all data and research on:
Economic InequalityPoverty

What you should know about this indicator

  • Income has been equivalized – adjusted to account for the fact that people in the same household can share costs like rent and heating.
  • Only working-age population is considered (from 18 to 65 years old) , and also the income definition is the newest from the OECD since 2012. For more information on the methodology, visit the OECD Income Distribution Database (IDD).
  • Survey estimates for 2020 are subject to additional uncertainty and are to be treated with extra caution, as in most countries the survey fieldwork was affected by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Data calculated according to the new OECD Terms of reference. Compared to previous terms of reference, these include a more detailed breakdown of current transfers received and paid by households as well as a revised definition of household income, including the value of goods produced for own consumption as an element of self-employed income.

The OECD Income Distribution database (IDD) has been developed to benchmark and monitor countries’ performance in the field of income inequality and poverty. It contains a number of standardised indicators based on the central concept of “equivalised household disposable income”, i.e. the total income received by the households less the current taxes and transfers they pay, adjusted for household size with an equivalence scale. While household income is only one of the factors shaping people’s economic well-being, it is also the one for which comparable data for all OECD countries are most common. Income distribution has a long-standing tradition among household-level statistics, with regular data collections going back to the 1980s (and sometimes earlier) in many OECD countries.

Achieving comparability in this field is a challenge, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources. In order to maximise international comparability as well as inter-temporal consistency of data, the IDD data collection and compilation process is based on a common set of statistical conventions (e.g. on income concepts and components). The information obtained by the OECD through a network of national data providers, via a standardized questionnaire, is based on national sources that are deemed to be most representative for each country.

Small changes in estimates between years should be treated with caution as they may not be statistically significant.

Percentage reduction in Gini coefficient
This is the percentage difference between the Gini coefficient before taxes and benefits and the Gini coefficient after taxes and benefits.
Source
OECD (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
April 10, 2024
Next expected update
April 2025
Date range
1976–2022
Unit
%

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Government Spending by Our World in Data

Government Spending

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser
A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Taxation by Our World in Data

Taxation

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser
Scatter chart, before and after tax income inequality

Income inequality before and after taxes: how much do countries redistribute income?

Joe Hasell

Explore charts that include this data

Reduction in income inequality before and after tax among total vs. working age population

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The OECD Income Distribution database (IDD) has been developed to benchmark and monitor countries’ performance in the field of income inequality and poverty. It contains a number of standardized indicators based on the central concept of “equivalized household disposable income”, i.e. the total income received by the households less the current taxes and transfers they pay, adjusted for household size with an equivalence scale. While household income is only one of the factors shaping people’s economic well-being, it is also the one for which comparable data for all OECD countries are most common. Income distribution has a long-standing tradition among household-level statistics, with regular data collections going back to the 1980s (and sometimes earlier) in many OECD countries.

Achieving comparability in this field is a challenge, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources. In order to maximise international comparability as well as inter-temporal consistency of data, the IDD data collection and compilation process is based on a common set of statistical conventions (e.g. on income concepts and components). The information obtained by the OECD through a network of national data providers, via a standardized questionnaire, is based on national sources that are deemed to be most representative for each country.

Small changes in estimates between years should be treated with caution as they may not be statistically significant.

Retrieved on
April 10, 2024
Retrieved from
https://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2024). Income Distribution Database.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Percentage reduction in Gini coefficient”, part of the following publication: Joe Hasell, Pablo Arriagada, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2023) - “Economic Inequality”. Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reduction-in-income-inequality [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Percentage reduction in Gini coefficient” [dataset]. OECD, “OECD Income Distribution Database (IDD)” [original data]. Retrieved November 23, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reduction-in-income-inequality