World view
Definition: Overall inequality captures the extent to which an outcome is unevenly distributed between individuals in a given country. It is measured with the Gini index, which theoretically lies between 0 (everyone earns the same amount) and 1 (a single person earns income while everyone else doesn’t).
Reading: A value of 0.5 can be interpreted as half way between perfect equality and maximum inequality (in the absence of negative incomes).
Source: Authors’ computation on national-level microdata. For each country, the latest survey wave is used to produce this map (see tooltips). For details on the source data of a given country, see the corresponding country focus by clicking on it.
Definition: Absolute Inequality of opportunity (IOp) quantifies the part of overall inequality in an outcome that can be predicted by predetermined characteristics such as family background, race or ethnicity, gender, and place of birth. We use random forests as the prediction method of our headline measure shown here. It is also measured with the Gini index, and hence directly comparable to overall inequality.
Reading: If absolute IOp equals 0.5 and overall inequality 0.75, two thirds of overall inequality can be predicted by inherited characteristics.
Source: Authors’ computation on national-level microdata. For each country, the latest survey wave is used to produce this map (see tooltips). For details on the source data of a given country, see the corresponding country focus by clicking on it. See the Learn more page for methodological details.
Definition: Relative inequality of opportunity (IOp) corresponds to the ratio of absolute inequality of opportunity to overall inequality. It captures the share of inequality that can be predicted by inherited characteristics such as family background, race or ethnicity, gender, and place of birth.
Reading: A value of 50% can be interpreted as “50% of the overall inequality in a country can be predicted by inherited characteristics”.
Source: Authors’ computation on national-level microdata. For each country, the latest survey wave is used to produce this map (see tooltips). For details on the source data of a given country, see the corresponding country focus by clicking on it. See the Learn more page for methodological details.
Definition:Intergenerational mobility is usually quantified using its opposite concept: intergenerational persistence. The latter captures the strength of the association between parents’ income and their children’s. On this map, it is measured as the correlation between percentile ranks, from the bottom 1% to the top 1% of each generation’s income distribution.
Reading: A value of 0.5 can be interpreted as “An increase of 10 percentiles in parents’ income is associated with an increase of 5 percentiles in the income of their child on average”
Source: Referenced in countries’ tooltip. See the Learn more page for methodological details.