How has wealth inequality changed across Europe since the 2008 crisis?
The richest 10% in the eurozone held 57.3% of total net household wealth in the final quarter of 2024. This is 2.8 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2009, when their share was 54.5%, according to the European Central Bank (ECB).
Wealth inequality has increased in some parts of Europe while declining in others in the period from 2008 to 2023, according to UBS's Global Wealth Report 2024. The report notes that wealth inequality has generally risen in most of Eastern Europe, while the data for Western Europe is 'extremely mixed'.
So, which European countries have seen the greatest increases or decreases in inequality since the 2008 financial crisis? And which countries in Europe have the highest disparities between rich and poor?
UBS's report covers 12 European countries and uses the Gini coefficient as the primary measure of inequality. A higher Gini coefficient indicates greater wealth inequality, with 0 representing perfect equality. Net worth — or 'wealth' — is defined as the total value of a household's financial and real assets (primarily housing), minus its debts.
In 2023, the Wealth Inequality Gini Index ranged from 46 in Belgium to 75 in Sweden, among the 12 European countries covered.
Sweden recorded the highest level of wealth inequality by far, followed by Germany (68), Switzerland (67), and Austria (65).
Belgium stood out with the lowest Gini score of 46, indicating the highest level of equal wealth distribution in the list. It was a clear outlier, as the closest countries — Italy and Spain — both had significantly higher scores of 57.
France and the UK — two of Europe's major economies — both fall below the 12-country average Gini index of 62.1, with scores of 59 and 61 respectively. Among the Nordic countries, Denmark (62) and Finland (64) were around the average, as was the Netherlands (64).
Looking at the change in the Gini Index between 2008 and 2023, Finland recorded the highest increase, rising by 21%, from 53 to 64. Spain followed closely, with a 20% increase, from 47 to 57.
Italy also saw a notable rise of around 15%, going from 50 to 57, while Denmark's index increased by 11%, from 56 to 62.
According to the UBS report, wealth inequality also increased in the UK by roughly 8% and in France by 5% between 2008 and 2023. Sweden, which had the highest Gini Index among the countries examined, saw only a slight rise of 1% during this period.
Wealth inequality declined in five out of the 12 countries examined. Belgium saw the largest drop, with an 11% decrease in its Gini Index—from 51 to 46.
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland each recorded a roughly 5% decline, while the Netherlands saw a 4% reduction over the same period.
Veli-Matti Törmälehto, a senior researcher at Statistics Finland, noted that surveys carried out by his own organisation also indicate a rise in wealth inequality.
'In general, the increase in wealth inequality in Finland can be attributed to a shift from real assets towards financial assets in households' average portfolio,' Törmälehto told Euronews Business. 'The role of housing wealth has been important, with weak and even declining housing prices and uneven regional patterns, as well as declining homeownership rate.'
He also noted that financial wealth has continued to grow, which contributes to rising inequality, as these assets are heavily concentrated among the wealthiest households.
According to Statistics Finland, the share of total wealth held by the wealthiest 10% of households increased from 43.9% in 2009 to 51.8% in 2023.
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Arthur Apostel, a researcher at Ghent University, pointed out that an ECB study shows a slight decline in Belgium's wealth inequality — from 0.71 in 2010 to 0.69 in 2023 —representing a 2.8% decrease. This differs from what the UBS report claims. Apostel argued that there is insufficient evidence to confidently conclude that wealth inequality in Belgium has meaningfully decreased in recent years.
According to the Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA), the share of net wealth held by the top 5% in Belgium declined from 49.3% in 2010 to 44.8% in 2023.
Both Apostel and Törmälehto recommend caution when using UBS figures, especially for cross-country comparisons, as the report relies on estimates drawn from a mix of micro- and macro-level data.
Gini Index scores may not clearly show how unequally wealth is distributed, partly because they're not very sensitive to the extremes.
But wealth shares held by top percentiles provide a more detailed picture. While this breakdown is not included in the 2024 UBS report, it is available in the 2023 edition, which presents data from 2022.
In 2022, the richest 10% of households in Sweden held 74.4% of total wealth, while in Belgium they held just 43.5%. These two countries had the highest and lowest wealth inequality Gini Index scores, respectively, among the 12 countries included in 2023.
The top 10% of households held 63% of total wealth in Germany and 62.5% in Switzerland— placing both countries just behind Sweden in both the Gini Index and the share of wealth held by the top 10%.
While the rankings of some countries shift slightly when looking at the top 5% or top 1% of wealth holders, the overall trends in wealth distribution remain consistent.
The report emphasised that changes in inequality alone don't necessarily indicate whether people are better or worse off in different countries.
It suggests that absolute wealth levels also need to be taken into consideration 'in order to paint a comprehensive picture of a society's wealth profile'. In other words, it's also important to look at how much wealth people have, as well as how it is divided.
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