Regional differentiation of income distributions in Poland

Alina Jędrzejczak; Małgorzata Misztal; Dorota Pekasiewicz

doi:https://doi.org/10.59139/stattrans-2025-031

Regional differentiation of income distributions in Poland

Alina Jędrzejczak Department of Statistical Methods, University of Lodz; Lodz, Poland & Statistical Office in Lodz, Lodz, Poland ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5478-928 , Małgorzata Misztal Department of Statistical Methods, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8719-2097 , Dorota Pekasiewicz Department of Statistical Methods, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8275-3345 Statistics in Transition new series, vol. 26, 2025, 3, pages: 135-154 Published online: 5 September 2025 https://doi.org/10.59139/stattrans-2025-031 Citation: Jędrzejczak A., Misztal M., Pekasiewicz D., 2025. Regional differentiation of income distributions in Poland. Statistics in Transition new series, 26(3), pp. 135-154 https://doi.org/10.59139/stattrans-2025-031

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ABSTRACT

Income inequality is observed to have recently increased both at the country and regional level. Consequently, inequality, poverty and social stratification have become important issues of debate among economists, sociologists and social policy-makers. Thus, an in-depth statistical analysis of the income situation of households is particularly important when counteracting the social effects of the discussed phenomenon. In the literature, the situation of regions in Poland is compared primarily in terms of the differences in GDP or average wages observed for households. The aim of the article is to analyze the regional differences in the entire income distribution in Poland, taking into account not only average income levels, but also income inequality and poverty parameters. The study, based on individual data from the Household Budget Survey, used parametric and non-parametric methods for estimating inequality and poverty measures, as well as cluster analysis methods. In the parametric approach, the empirical income distributions in Poland were approximated using the theoretical Dagum distribution. This enabled the segmentation of voivodships in terms of the estimated characteristics of the equivalent household income distribution. The results of the calculations confirmed the assumption that income distributions in Poland differ significantly across regions, and the obtained clusters allowed the detection of groups of regions that may require a separate social policy aimed at improving the material situation of households.

KEYWORDS

income distribution; inequality; poverty; Dagum model; cluster analysis.

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