Income Inequality in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s

Abstract

The 1980s and 1990s have seen Ireland on a macroeconomic roller-coaster ride, as described and analysed in other papers in this volume, with stagnation through much of the 1980s, economic growth accelerating from 1987, stop-starting in the early 1990s, and then reaching and sustaining exceptionally high levels each year from 1994. Recent research internationally has highlighted the fact that income and earnings inequality increased very sharply during the 1980s and into the 1990s in a number of industrialised countries, notably the UK and the USA. Against the background of dramatic changes in the macroeconomy, has Ireland seen such an increase in inequality? Here we examine how earnings dispersion, the distribution of income, and household poverty evolved in Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s, and seek to place Ireland in comparative perspective.