Economic Inequality in Portugal: A Picture in the Beginnings of the 21st century

This article uses data from the 1994-2001 waves of the European Community Household Panel to study economic inequality in Portugal. It reports data on the Portuguese distributions of income, labor earnings, and capital income, and on related features of inequality, such as age, employment status, educational attainment, marital status and economic mobility. It also documents changes in inequality from 1994 to 2001, a period of economic expansion in Portugal. The statistical significance of the observed changes is assessed using non-parametric tests based on bootstrap techniques. The paper shows that income, earnings, and, very especially, capital income are very unequally distributed in Portugal. It also shows that over the sample years income and earnings inequality decreased, whilst capital income inequality tended to increase.