Changes in household income distribution after the introduction of social policy programmes in Poland
Changes in household income distribution after the introduction of social policy programmes in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to analyse changes in the distribution of income of Polish households during the implementation and functioning of social policy programmes in Poland. Attention is paid to social groups that experienced a difficult economic situation, in particular marriages with dependent children. The added value of the research lies in the in-depth comparative analysis of the distribution of income and its distance in cross-section and time, based on individual data from the Household Budget Survey for two periods – before the implementation of the programmes and during their full operation. In order to compare the income distributions, statistical analysis methods were applied to the empirical income distributions. In addition to the commonly known and basic numerical characteristics of the distributions, a distribution distance measure and an income gap ratio were used. All calculations were based on individual data from the Household Budget Survey carried out in 2015 and 2018. As a result of the calculations, it was shown that in the analysed period there were significant changes in the distribution of income among the Polish population in terms of average income and income inequality. The former increased substantially, while the latter decreased, including between social groups. The results show that the social policy programmes implemented in Poland after 2015 contributed significantly to raising the level of income of most members of society and reducing economic inequalities.

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