From Households to Individuals: a Gendered Approach to Functional Income Inequality in the Eurozone

This paper analyses functional income inequality at the individual level using data fromthe European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for 19 Eu-rozone countries over the period 2008–2022. It integrates the personal and functionaldistribution of income by developing a typology of income groups based on women’s andmen’s relationships to production and distribution processes, including state interventionand inter- and intra-family transfers. To address the limitations of equivalised incomemeasures from a gender perspective, the paper proposes individualising income throughfour stylised income-sharing scenarios, ranging from full pooling to complete individuali-sation. The results show that official income measures tend to underestimate poverty ratesfor both men and women and that both within- and between-income group inequalitiesrepresent important dimensions of economic disparity.