Atkinson Coefficient (epsilon=0.5)
| Quick info | |
|---|---|
| Data type | Numeric |
| Scale | Metric |
| Value labels | Not applicable |
| Technical name | socstr_atkincoef_eps05 |
| Category | Social structure |
| Label | Atkinson Coefficient (epsilon=0.5) |
| Related indicators |
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The Atkinson Coefficient is measuring income inequality around the world. This Coefficient not only shows the ratio itself but takes different parameters like society's aversion of income inequality into account.
- 0 = complete unequal distribution of income
- 1 = complete equal distribution of income
The Atkinson Coefficient ranges between these two values.
Coding rules
The epsilon is measuring the aversion of the society towards income inequality. The greater the epsilon the more tends the Coefficient towards 1. The variable is calculated by dividing the male population with basic education aged 15+ by the total male population aged 15+. Teorell et al. (2024:1089) define the variable as "Atkinson Index is a welfare-based measure of inequality, representing the percentage of total income that a given society would have to sacrifice in order to have (more) equally distributed incomes (more equal shares of income between its citizens). This measure depends on the degree of society aversion to inequality, where a higher value entails greater social utility or willingness by individuals to accept smaller incomes in exchange for a more equal distribution. In the calculation of this variable, the aversion parameter (epsilon) is set to 0.5."
Bibliographic info
Citation:- Teorell, Jan, Aksel Sundström, Sören Holmberg, Bo Rothstein, Natalia Alvarado Pachon, Cem Mert Dalli, Rafael Lopez Valverde & Paula Nilsson (2024). The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan24. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government, doi:10.18157/qogstdjan24/li>
- LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg. (2022). LIS inequality and poverty key figures. https://www.lisdatacenter.org/download-key-figures/
- Kohli, Martin, Künemund, Harald, Schäfer, Andrea, Schupp, Jürgen and Vogel, Claudia (2006). Erbschaften und ihr Einfluss auf die Vermögensverteilung, in: Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 75 (1) p.58-76. https://doi.org/10.3790/vjh.75.1.58
Misc
Project manager(s): Responsible for data editing, description (WESIS) and entry: Andrea Schäfer (2021-2025, Version 0.002), Jean-Yves Gerlitz (2018-2020; Version 0.001); Principal Investigator: Irene Dingeldey, Ulrich Mückenberger; Student assistants: Karolin Meyer (2018-2020)
Data release:- Version 0.001: Initial release with data The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan19
- Version 0.002: Updated with data from The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version January 2024
Revisions: No revisions yet
Sources
- Teorell, Jan, Stefan Dahlberg, Sören Holmberg, Bo Rothstein, Natalia Alvarado Pachon and Richard Svensson. 2019. The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan19. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute. http://www.qog.pol.gu.se doi:10.18157/qogstdjan19
- Teorell, Jan and Sundström, Aksel and Holmberg, Sören and Rothstein, Bo and Alvarado Pachon, Natalia and Dalli, Cem Mert and Lopez Valvarde, Rafael and Nilsson, Paula (2024). The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan24. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, Available at: https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/standard-dataset
- LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg. (2022). LIS inequality and poverty key figures. https://www.lisdatacenter.org/download-key-figures
