Canadian Wealth Lorenz Curve

 

    As promised, above is the Canadian Wealth Lorenz Curve showing the percentage of total national wealth held by each percentile of the population.

    The first thing to notice is that there is not really much movement in this over time. In fact, looking at this I don't find it too interesting and probably would not have posted on it on its own - but I promised in the income Lorenz curve post that I'd run this one too - so here it is. 

    Further, to recognize is that wealth can be negative as individuals can have a negative net wealth - this is specifically seen in the bottom 20 percentile of the population, the net worth of this set is around the -2% range. We see that 50% of the Canadian wealth is held by 90% of the population, with the top 50% of the wealth being held by the top 10th percentile (and the top 25% of the wealth being held by the top 1%). 

    Additionally, most of the movement in this curve takes place in the top 20th percentile. so zooming just on this area we witness the following - still not too exciting.

    So, provided out of a promise to provide, I find it a little interesting that there has not been much change in the wealth distribution over the last 15ish years, That is, a rather anti-climatic change in wealth.

    Further - to be honest - I struggled to find a definition of this data-set, so I am not 100% sure how wealth is determined and what sources of wealth go into this calculation - thus it may very well be that the unremarkability of the above data is due to the way in which wealth is measured and reported.

Canadian Lorenz Curve since 1950

 

    Working on this for a course - but I thought many would find it interesting. Above is the Lorenz Curve for Canada from 1950 to the present (2021). 

    To recall what a Lorenz Curve shows - A Lorenz Curve displays the population percentile to the income percentile. In a perfectly equal society, the bottom 50% of the nation would earn 50% of the nation's income, the bottom 25%, earn 25% of income, etc. etc (this is the 45 degree dotted line). 

    The further the curve shifts down to the right, the more unequal society is - for example, to compare and contrast the 1950 levels to the 2021 levels. 

    In 2021, the bottom 90% of Canadians account for almost 60% of all income, while the next 9% (90 to 99% of all Canadians) account for almost 26% of all income, Finally, the top 1% of Canadians account for almost 15% of all income. 

    In 1950, the bottom 90% of Canadians accounted for just over 65% of all income, while the next 9% (90 to 99% of all Canadians) accounted for just over 25% of all income, while finally to top 1% of Canadians accounted for just under 10% of all income. 

    That is to say, over the last 70 years, the bottom 90% have seen their share of income eroded, the next 9% (90 to 99%) have seen their share stay almost constant, while the top 1% have seen their share of income rise by over 5%. 

    Coming up I hope to create the same for the wealth distribution in Canada - we will see what that looks like! (Spoiler - it's not that interesting)