Income Inequality Indices Interpreted as Measures of Relative Deprivation/Satisfaction

• Published in: Social indicators research Vol. 109; no. 3; pp. 471 - 491
• Main Authors: Imedio-Olmedo, Luis José, Parrado-Gallardo, Encarnación M., Bárcena-Martín, Elena
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.12.2012; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Comparative Analysis; Correlation; Deprivation; Disadvantaged Environment; Economic sociology; Family; Gini index; Human Geography; Income; Income determination; Income Distribution; Income Inequality; Income level; Income maintenance; Indexes; Inequality; Life Satisfaction; Lorenz curve; Low income; Measures (Individuals); Microeconomics; Multivariate Analysis; Population mean; Public Health; Quality of Life Research; Random variables; Relative Deprivation; Satisfaction; Social Differences; Social inequality; Social Sciences; Socioeconomics; Sociology; Sociology of economy and development; Standard of living. Income; Term weighting; Weighted averages; Weighting; family; Inter-individual comparisons; Inequality; Weighted means; Measurement; Poverty; Income; Satisfaction
• ISSN: 0303-8300; 1573-0921
• DOI: 10.1007/s11205-011-9912-8

This paper considers different ways of making comparisons between individuals in terms of deprivation and/or satisfaction. This allows the Gini index, the Bonferroni index and the De Vergottini index to be interpreted as social deprivation measures as well as social satisfaction measures. The inequality measures that belong to the β family, or linear combinations of them, are obtained when using different weighting schemes to average the deprivation and satisfaction associated with each income level. Particularly, the generalised Gini indices (Yitzhaki, Int Econ Rev 24:617–628 in 1983), the indices proposed by Aaberge (J Econ Inequal 5(3):305–322, 2007) or those proposed by Imedio-Olmedo et al. (J Public Econ Theory 13(1):97–124, 2011) can be used to evaluate social deprivation or social satisfaction in an income distribution.