The relative income gap between the top and bottom earners did not widen during the economic boom, according to figures made public yesterday.
Survey results compiled by the Economic and Social Research Institute show that, while the gap between high and low earners is particularly high in the Republic, it was not exacerbated by boom.
Prof Brian Nolan, an ESRI economist, told a conference in Dublin yesterday that the results were contrary to what might have been expected. Some would say that a sharp widening of the relative income gap was an inevitable consequence of growth driven by foreign direct investment, he said.
But the ESRI survey of 4,000 households, which was updated at regular intervals, suggested this had not happened.
Prof Nolan told the conference, hosted by FÁS and The Irish Times, that in 1987 the top 10 per cent of earners among full-time employees earned 3.6 times more in gross weekly pay than the 10 per cent at the bottom.
By 1997 the top 10 per cent were earning four times more, but in 2000, following the height of the boom, the figure was back to 3.3, lower than the multiple of 13 years earlier.
Other figures showed that in 1987 those in the bottom 10 per cent were earning exactly half of the gross median pay rate; by 2000 this had risen to 0.59 per cent.
The survey did not, however, take tax cuts into account, and these were of greater benefit to the higher paid.
Prof Nolan's figures will still come as a surprise to trade unionists who argue that the income gap between the high- and low-paid has widened dramatically since social partnership began in 1987. They want this addressed in any new partnership deal.
Their argument will be bolstered, on the other hand, by Prof Nolan's assertion that the "earnings dispersion" level was particularly high in the Republic to begin with.
This means that even before the boom began, the relative gap between the top and bottom earners was higher in Ireland than elsewhere.
A comparative study of eight developed economies showed that only in the US did low-paid workers get a smaller share of the cake than in Ireland.
