To benchmark and monitor income inequality and poverty across countries, the OECD relies on a dedicated statistical database: the OECD Income Distribution Database. Due to the increasing importance of income inequality and poverty issues in policy discussion, the database is now annually updated.

Increase in Gini coefficient of income inequality
OECD average, mid-1980s = 100

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19 June 2014

Income Inequality Update 
Rising Inequality: Youth and poor fall further behind 

• figures and data in .xls

Database (IDD in OECD.Stat) 

Compare your country? Data visualisation

Addtional visualisation: Explore this CNN dynamic map to show how, in its first 3 years, the crisis made the world more unequal

Methods and Concepts

• Terms of reference of OECD project on the distribution of household incomes (Revised Version 2012)

• What are equivalence scales?

• Canberra Group Handbook on Household Income Statistics - see:
       - Handbook on household income statistics (Second edition - 2011)
       - Report and Recommendations (First edition - 2001)

• 21-22 February 2013: Meeting of Providers of OECD Income Distribution Data, OECD - Paris

• 16-17 March 2009: Joint OECD/University of Maryland International Conference Measuring Poverty, Income Inequality, and Social Exclusion - Lessons from Europe,

• Measurement of Low Incomes and Poverty in a Perspective of International Comparisons; Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Paper No.14 (1994)

Quality review of the OECD database on household incomes and poverty and the OECD earnings database (December 2012)

This quality review is in three main parts:
-Part I reports the results of a first self-assessment of different quality dimensions of the OECD Database on Household Income Distribution and Poverty (.pdf)
-Part II assesses the cross-country comparability of the OECD Earnings Distribution Database (.pdf)
-Part III provides detailed country data reviews on income distribution data, for the 34 OECD member countries. These country reviews compare the OECD benchmark series for income distribution and poverty reporting with alternative estimates which are available on a national or international basis -  each country separately (.pdf) including revised versions:

Other international databases related to income distribution

• Income and living conditions in Europe (Eurostat)
• Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
• World Top Incomes Database (Paris School of Economics)