Income inequalities and poverty in Slovakia: Development and changes

Abstract

Slovakia is a suitable object for the study of income inequalities. The dynamic development of the country in recent years has significantly changed the social situation of its inhabitants. This development made visible the already considerable inequalities of income and wealth at the regional level (rich West and poor East), between the city and the countryside (richer cities and poorer lagging countryside), but also among the considerably wealthy elite and marginalised populations. This contribution has three objectives. The first is to capture the development of income inequality and poverty in Slovakia, the second is to capture the distribution of income at different geographic scales, and the third is to identify low-income regions.