6. Discussion and conclusion
6.1. Was income inequality in 1868 Norway high?
This paper has shown substantial variation in income both within and between occupation groups and regions of Norway in 1868. As stated in Section 4, these income differences add up to a Gini coefficient of 0.54. How does this compare to other countries? Three relevant reconstructions of income distributions are comparable to those found here. First, Lindert (2000) gives an income Gini of Great Britain in 1867 of 0.49. Second, Lindert and Williamson (2012) give a US Gini coefficient in 1860 of 0.51. Third, Nafziger and Lindert (2012) calculate a Gini coefficient for Russia in 1904 at 0.36. These studies all define inequality at the household level rather than the individual level. Today, Norwegian income inequality is well below that of all these three countries. We know from studies based on tax data (Aaberge and Atkinson, 2010; Aaberge et al., 2016) that income inequality in Norway has fallen substantially over the past 150 years. However, it might still appear surprising that inequality in nineteenth-century Norway was so high, particularly when compared to Russia. As the present paper is defined on a specific population (men aged above 25) and with several assumptions as described in Section 3, we now consider whether, and how, adjusting these would change the estimated Norwegian income inequality. First, we can see how the Norwegian Gini would respond if a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation is applied to translate the men-aged-above-25 Gini to a household Gini. Second, we can adjust the assumptions used in the calculation of the Norwegian Gini to better match those used in the other countries.
