Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDG-MONITORING@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 10 on reducing inequality within and among countries; which is embedded in the European Commission’s Priorities under the European Green Deal, Economy that works for people,  European way of life and European Democracy. SDG 10 among other things, calls for nations to adapt polices and legislation to increase the income of the bottom 40 % of the population and to reduce inequalities based on income, sex, age, disability, race, class, ethnicity, religion and opportunity.

Furthermore, the indicator is included as a key indicator in the Social Scoreboard for the European Pillar of Social Rights.

One of the objectives of the social policies in the EU is to reduce inequality by providing equal opportunities for all. Analysing the inequality of income distribution is one of the ways to measure inequality within EU countries. As a measure of the inequlity of income distribution within a country, the indicator complements the indicators on the income share of the bottom 40 % and on the at risk of poverty gap.

The indicator is a measure of the inequality of income distribution. It is calculated as the ratio of total income received by the 20 % of the population with the highest income (the top quintile) to that received by the 20 % of the population with the lowest income (the bottom quintile).

All incomes are compiled as equivalised disposable incomes.

Income quintile share ratio

Calendar year

From 2021 Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 foresees the requirements relating to geographical coverage, detailed sample characteristics, including subsampling, in accordance with Annex III, common data gathering periods, common standards for editing and imputation, weighting, estimation and variance estimation.

Before 2021 onwards EU-SILC is based on a common framework defined by harmonised lists of primary and secondary variables, common concepts, a recommended design, common requirements (such as imputation procedures, weighting, sampling errors calculation) and classifications aiming at maximising comparability of the information produced. Details can be found in the metadata of the source datasets.

 EU-SILC

Data source: Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

Data provider: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, based on data reported by the countries.

Every year

Indicator is updated annually in November. Complete and updated ESS data release information can be accessed via Eurostat release calendar.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated within one year after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Türkiye.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States respectively other presented countries.

> 10 years

Presented time series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2010.

< 3 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is less than 3 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

see table  sdg_10_41

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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