This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
This chapter presents distributional information on household disposable income consistent with the Institutional Sector Accounts.
Figure 1.1 shows the ratio of gross disposable income per quintile to the average for all households. The first quintile, or the bottom 20% of households in the income distribution, had gross disposable income less than half that of the average for all households. In contrast, the fifth quintile, or the top 20% of households, had gross disposable incomes approximately twice that of the average for all households. These ratios are consistent over the period 2010 to 2015.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | |
| Quintile 1 | 0.400366904343647 | 0.4055962573748 | 0.38762874775872 | 0.40750702887801 | 0.407957348949566 | 0.435761523561802 |
| Quintile 2 | 0.563492815058737 | 0.628876511341506 | 0.623638618671021 | 0.594972826812744 | 0.60541170790092 | 0.614310214646855 |
| Quintile 3 | 0.843567312992778 | 0.83425229348466 | 0.814429369704711 | 0.800630660533922 | 0.830080118862886 | 0.869405785774692 |
| Quintile 4 | 1.16008405162463 | 1.12590909068276 | 1.129309030858 | 1.14048506752106 | 1.13860865351519 | 1.13854832098604 |
| Quintile 5 | 1.99571443862309 | 1.9823615994318 | 2.01962422354357 | 2.04117146256683 | 2.01714839910001 | 1.93969654398827 |
Figure 1.2 shows the ratio of gross disposable income between the top and bottom quintiles of the income distribution over time. This ratio fell from a value of 5 in 2010 to 4.5 in 2015. This means that in 2015, the gross disposable income of the top quintile was five times higher than that of the bottom quintile.
| Ratio of Quintile 5 to Quintile 1 | |
| 2010 | 4.98471381368253 |
| 2011 | 4.88752438758318 |
| 2012 | 5.21020237848996 |
| 2013 | 5.0089233262719 |
| 2014 | 4.94450805775135 |
| 2015 | 4.45127997564745 |
Figure 1.3 provides a breakdown of gross disposable income per quintile over the period 2010-2015. The figure shows that the relative importance of compensation of employees rises between the first and fourth quintile. For the fifth quintile, operating surplus/mixed income and net property income are a more significant source of income than for the other quintiles. In terms of government transfers, the relative importance of taxes in gross disposable incomes rises as you move up the income distribution while social benefits in cash become relatively less significant.
| Compensation of Employees | Net Property Income | Net Social Contributions | Operating Surplus & Mixed Income | Other Current Transfers | Social Benefits in Cash | Taxes | |
| Quintile 1 | 29.8190277623581 | -4.14985366314019 | -4.47742553166961 | 19.4561030373591 | -3.52519329811379 | 69.5974803711002 | -6.7201386778939 |
| Quintile 2 | 45.2654738563577 | 0.225738653889117 | -7.64328135638036 | 17.6765370158569 | -2.5973235797116 | 55.3229944416266 | -8.25013903163832 |
| Quintile 3 | 74.9807870885283 | 0.955240180098718 | -14.7813598855089 | 17.5777632869865 | -2.07724163398376 | 37.9462199918508 | -14.6014090279716 |
| Quintile 4 | 105.000624559933 | 1.45375257014885 | -23.5487606926701 | 17.7552879503697 | -1.66766620166965 | 24.5403975650875 | -23.5336357511995 |
| Quintile 5 | 94.6602856328451 | 7.91304305201876 | -25.7268967621473 | 35.345113970702 | -1.0533654962495 | 18.7622781854861 | -29.9004585826551 |
Figure 1.4 shows the contributions of each quintile to household disposable income growth.
| Quintile 1 | Quintile 2 | Quintile 3 | Quintile 4 | Quintile 5 | Disposable Income Total | |
| 2011 | -0.326402806727832 | 0.760081475468641 | -0.981909855813137 | -1.77272313810908 | -2.81996760371856 | -5.32439988125021 |
| 2012 | -0.174016751204693 | 0.104137954046769 | 0.0354910207902299 | 0.557896361960579 | 1.73353330733389 | 2.2165610146611 |
| 2013 | 0.411680625005381 | -0.509059293309709 | -0.366759345224528 | 0.218286942066139 | 0.0157388575237311 | -0.282683161752939 |
| 2014 | 0.146048219629774 | 0.413684669651404 | 0.875093110045282 | 0.345630518452655 | -0.376307674940218 | 1.35342917312806 |
| 2015 | 1.06643608442294 | 0.801273554737694 | 1.87879963484791 | 1.15462830947608 | 0.496562831781123 | 5.24926124008926 |
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