Regional Income Stratification in Unified Germany Using a Gini Decomposition Approach

Referierte Aufsätze Web of Science

Joachim R. Frick, Jan Goebel

In: Regional Studies 42 (2008), 4, S. 555-577

Abstract

Using representative micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), this paper delivers new insights into the development of income inequality and regional stratification in Germany after unification. This paper applies a new method for detecting social stratification by a decomposition of the Gini index that yields the obligatory between- and within-group components as well as an 'overlapping' index for the different sub-populations. It is found that East Germany is still a stratum on its own when using post-government income, but since 2001 no longer is when using pre-government income. These results remain stable when using alternatively defined regional classifications. However, there are also indications of some regional variation within West Germany.

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