Abstract
This chapter explores the effects of the Greek crisis on the level and structure of income inequality and poverty. Inequality rose during the crisis. The magnitude of the change varies across indices, and indices that are relatively more sensitive to changes close to the bottom of the income distribution record larger increases. The elderly improved their relative position, while there was substantial deterioration in the relative position of the enlarged group of the unemployed. The contribution of disparities between socio-economic groups to aggregate inequality rose, while the contribution of educational disparities declined. Poverty increased considerably, especially when “anchored” poverty lines are used. The contribution of households headed by pensioners to aggregate poverty declined sharply with a corresponding increase in the contribution of unemployed-headed households.
The views expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Council of Economic Advisors.
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Notes
- 1.
All references to Eurostat estimates are derived from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/ or http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/ameco/ accessed on various dates in August 2017.
- 2.
The Lorenz curve is a graphical representation of the distribution of income when the members of the population are ranked from the poorest to the richest. It depicts the relationship between the cumulative share of the population and the cumulative distribution of income. When there is perfect equality, the Lorenz curve coincides with the 45° line; when all income accrues to a single population member, it coincides with the lower horizontal and the right vertical axis. When the Lorenz curves of two distributions do not intersect, all inequality indices satisfying the axioms mentioned in the previous section would rank the one closer to the line of perfect equality (45° line) as more equal. When two Lorenz curves intersect, there are always inequality indices that can rank the corresponding distributions in different order.
- 3.
It should be noted, though, that in the framework of the austerity measures adopted in recent years, the share of the cost of public healthcare services borne by their users increased. This is likely to have had a disproportionate impact on the elderly, who are heavy users of such services, even though it did not affect their monetary incomes.
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Andriopoulou, E., Karakitsios, A., Tsakloglou, P. (2018). Inequality and Poverty in Greece: Changes in Times of Crisis. In: Katsikas, D., Sotiropoulos, D., Zafiropoulou, M. (eds) Socioeconomic Fragmentation and Exclusion in Greece under the Crisis. New Perspectives on South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68798-8_2
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