From Flux to Capital: Distinguishing Patterns of Income and Wealth Segregation in the Netherlands

Abstract

Who are “the rich” and how should their residential patterns be studied? In society, the rich are defined not only by their high income but also—and perhaps more importantly—by their high wealth. However, while income is closely monitored and taxed, wealth often remains less scrutinised, particularly in the context of residential segregation research. This study explores how the spatial patterns of affluence and poverty differ when considering wealth versus income and discusses their implications. By analyzing geo‐coded microdata from the Netherlands, we reveal that wealth segregation is much higher than income segregation, and that roughly the top tenth richest households in terms of wealth are far more spatially isolated from the rest of the population than what the income‐based literature would suggest. Our findings also demonstrate three other key insights: (1) Whereas financial wealth is more unequally distributed than real estate wealth across society, it is more equally distributed across space. (2) Wealth segregation is notably more sensitive to the spatial scale of measurement compared to income segregation. (3) The temporal trends of income and wealth segregation diverge: while the former is decreasing in most urban areas, wealth segregation is rising almost everywhere in the Netherlands. This stresses the necessity of incorporating wealth into studies of segregation not as an alternative operationalization, but as a different perspective on the spatial concentration of capital which captures the role of social class, age and migration in a way that income‐based approaches cannot render.