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AIEL 2026


41st Conference of the Italian Association of Labour Economics

Department of Law
Roma Tre University 

Rome, 17-19 September 2026 

Patterns And Drivers of EU Income Inequality: An Analysis Of EU-SILC Data


Presenter

Antonio Scialà (University of Roma Tre)


Coauthors

Filomena Pietrovito, Alberto Pozzolo and Giuliano Resce


Abstract

Focusing on the period 2007-2021, this paper applies the Analysis of Gini (ANOGI) methodology introduced by Yitzhaki (1994) to the decomposition of EU-SILC householdlevel income data, to investigate the evolution of income distribution among EU Member States. Our findings show that aggregate income inequality has decreased in the European Union between 2007 and 2021, mainly driven by a drop in between-country inequality, aided by a reduction of the dispersive effect of within-country overlapping inequality. Within-country inequality and between-country overlapping inequality have instead remained broadly stable. The analysis of the bilateral within-country overlapping components also show that they are explained by macroeconomic factors such as cultural distance, geographical separation, technological differences, trade intensity, migration flows, and public expenditure patterns. The results indicate that closer cultural ties and stronger economic interactions are associated with greater overlap, suggesting that these determinants foster convergence in income distributions across the EU.