Development and Distribution of Incomes. Underpinnings for the Social Report for 2010

Labour's share in national income has steadily declined over the past decades. Although in 2009, caused by the economic collapse, the wage ratio went up again for the first time in decades, this did not reverse the long-term trend. The study uses a range of data to analyse the greater importance that income from property and entrepreneurial activities has gained as a result of the sagging wage ratio. Incomes of the self-employed are markedly higher than the average incomes of the dependently employed and are much more unequally distributed. Such income differences can also be seen at the household level: net incomes of private households with self-employment shares are more unequal than those without self-employment share. Yet recent data show that income distribution among the dependently employed is also becoming increasingly more unequal. An increase in the number of gainfully employed per household in the lower income strata partly compensated for income inequality at the personal level, especially in households with incomes from dependent employment. Similarly, there has been a greater spread between incomes for retired people in recent years.