Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. Income dispersion largely originates from the labour market, which is characterised by a still high unemployment rate, a pervasive informal sector and a wide wage dispersion...

Australia has seen large rises in living standards over the last decades across the whole of the income distribution. Technological change and international trade have contributed to this success, but have also brought structural change. Some industries have declined, while others flourished....

In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection. We simulate alternative scenarios for reforming the unemployment benefit and cash social...

Employment is pivotal to strengthening Greece’s economic recovery, increasing social welfare and redressing poverty. Jobs are returning, making inroads into high unemployment, but their wages and skill levels are lower than many that were lost during the crisis. Greece’s hiring is benefiting...

The growing literature studying the determinants of subjective wellbeing find that Mexicans report, on average, levels of life satisfaction that are above what would be predicted by the available objective measures of well-being. This paradox raises the following question: Are the drivers of...

Regional inequality in Slovakia is among the highest in the OECD and is increasing. The main reason for regional disparity is the combination of low economic growth and job creation in the eastern and central part of the country and insufficient labour mobility to the west, in particular by...

Income inequality and relative poverty in the United States are among the highest in the OECD and have substantially increased over the past decades. These developments have been associated with a number of other worrying statistics, including low intergenerational social mobility and weak real...

In several OECD countries, ongoing fiscal consolidation might have a negative impact on the static income distribution. However, this conclusion should be treated only as an approximate first step in the analysis. A full assessment of distributional effects of consolidation packages would need...

Sweden is a very egalitarian country but inequalities have risen and some groups are poorly integrated into the labour market. For growth to become more inclusive, the gap between the cost of labour and productivity for some groups needs to be reduced, transitions from education to work should...

Poverty and income inequality have worsened since the onset of the crisis. While the design of fiscal measures has mitigated the burden sharing of fiscal adjustment, as the recession has deepened unemployment has risen, earnings have declined and social tensions have increased. Getting people...