Inequality and family pooled earnings

Figure 17 and 19 are from our new Income inequalities report. Figure 17 shows that pooling personal annual labour earnings at household level reduces recorded inequalities by around 22% in Europe. We can see that there is a marked reduction in recorded inequalities in Mediterranean countries at household level, where the pooling of resources at household level is more prevalent, compared to northern European countries and Baltic countries. But there is also evidence to show that the capacity of the family unit to cushion income inequalities is diminishing due to demographic changes. Figure 19 shows average family sizes in EU Member States in 2005 and 2014. What does this all mean? Read the report here: http://bit.ly/InequalitiesFB