This is the conclusion of economics professor Egbert Jongen and lecturer-researcher Heike Vethaak from Leiden University research that was financed by the FNV trade union.
At first glance, the growth of prosperity in the Netherlands seems quite healthy. The average disposable income of households has grown by a total of 53 percent in the period studied from 1981 to 2021.
Mainly thanks to women
But this growth is mainly due to the increasing number of working women. Particularly because women with lower incomes have started working more over the past forty years, the average income of women increased by 3.4 percent annually. This is with the caveat that the starting level of women in 1981 was much lower than that of men.
For men, that picture looks a lot less rosy. Their incomes have grown only modestly in the same period (0.3 percent per year). In the lowest income groups, the real income (which takes inflation into account) of men has even decreased. This group therefore has less to spend than forty years ago.
This is in contrast to men with higher incomes. In the highest income groups, they earn several tens of percent more than in 1981. The result: the inequality between men’s incomes has increased considerably, which also causes the incomes of households at the top and bottom to grow apart.
According to the researchers, major changes are hidden behind the relatively stable income inequality in the Netherlands. “If women in the lower income groups had not started working so much, inequality in the Netherlands would have increased a lot more,” concludes Professor Jongen.
Fewer children
What the researchers also noticed is that there are strong differences in the family composition of households with lower and higher incomes. Today, there are many more singles and single parents in the Netherlands, and the average number of children per family is also lower. The research shows that this is especially the case among households that have less to spend. For the highest incomes, the number of children has hardly decreased and sometimes even increased.
Economic historian Jan Luiten van Zanden calls the findings plausible and convincing. He sees similarities with the conclusion that economist Wiemer Salverda already drew last year: namely that the increase in prosperity in the Netherlands in recent decades has gone beyond minimums.
“I think if you dig even deeper, you will find even more ‘hidden’ inequality trends,” says Van Zanden. “In that sense, the housing market is also a source of hidden increased inequality. The bottom 50 percent have paid more and more rent over the past 40 years, while the top 50 percent have become rich from the increase in the value of their own home.”
In his opinion, to get a complete picture of inequality in the Netherlands, the so-called ‘broad prosperity’ should be mapped out. In addition to income and assets, matters such as health, education, environment and living environment, and personal development are also taken into account.
2024-01-18 15:11:07
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