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Wealth inequality in our country is higher than expected. This is evident from a new study by the National Bank in collaboration with the European Central Bank (ECB). Yet inequality is actually decreasing somewhat, largely because the rich have become slightly less rich.
It is the first time that the National Bank is collaborating with the European Central Bank to map wealth inequality in Europe. This shows that wealth inequality is decreasing slightly across Europe – and therefore also in Belgium.
To express wealth inequality, the SNB uses the so-called Gini coefficient of household net wealth. This is a measure of the (in)equality in the distribution of this wealth: the higher, the more unequal the distribution. The coefficient for our country is currently 68%, compared to 70% in 2018. This means that Belgium is doing slightly better than the Eurozone, which is 72%. The data also shows that inequality has been lower than in the Eurozone since 2019.
Property
This concerns, among other things, the real estate sector in our country. Around 70% of Belgians own their own home and therefore benefit from the increasing value of real estate. Unlike other European countries, the richest 10% of Belgians own “only” 29% of residential real estate. And although there has been a sharp increase in real estate prices in our country, this increase remains significantly less strong than in other European countries. As a result, disproportionality also grows less rapidly. The fact that so many Belgians own their own home also makes Belgian families significantly wealthier than an average European family. The average net worth is 277,000 euros per family. Half of the families own more, the other half have less. For Europe this is an average of 150,000 euros.
As regards listed shares, the situation is clearly different. The richest 10% of Belgians own at least 79% of listed shares. And these stocks have performed less well in recent years, meaning the richest among us have gotten slightly less wealthy and inequality has fallen slightly.
READ ALSO. Are you rich, poor or middle class? Calculate here how much you have and how much poorer or richer you are than the average Belgian
However, inequality remains higher than initially expected. The OECD assumes that the richest 10% of Belgians own 47% of the wealth. The World Inequality Database estimates it at 52%. But in the end this is already 55% of the net wealth held by the 10% of the richest Belgians, for Europe this percentage is even higher, equal to 56%. Our country has recorded a slight decline compared to five years ago. The bottom 50% of our country’s richest people own just 8.4% of total net wealth. “This may seem unequal,” notes the National Bank, “but compared to most other eurozone countries, the distribution of wealth in Belgium is quite egalitarian. In the Eurozone, the poorest 50% own on average only 5% of the total wealth. In the United States the percentage is even only 1.5%. In neighboring countries, France and Germany, the percentage is 5 and 3.5% respectively.
2024-01-08 16:11:06
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