GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

his report deals with various inequalities and their correlates, effects and causes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia over the recent decades, focusing mainly on the 1990s and 2000s. Its main objective is to provide a comprehensive account of changing inequalities in income, wealth and education over time and their social, political and cultural impacts in the two republics. The Czech Republic and Slovakia as transforming economies experienced an increase of inequalities mainly in the beginning of the 1990s. The increase of inequality in both republics was a palpable output of the transformation process. However, it may have also resulted from the monetization, and thus improved measurability, of inequalities existing already before 1989 in different forms (e.g. access to certain goods or services not accessible to the general public). It should be emphasized that the level of inequality, after its growth in the 1990s, remained relatively stable and lower compared to other transforming countries in the 2000s. This is mostly a consequence of redistributive policies which alleviated the impact of transformation on low-income groups.