Headlines

• Since the economic and financial crisis of 2008-12, income levels across the EU have declined, particularly in Mediterranean Member States. During the same period, income inequality remained mostly stable in the whole of the EU but has increased substantially in Mediterranean Member States.
• The increase in inequality in the Mediterranean area, which has reached levels not seen for almost two decades, is chiefly related to declining labour income for the less well-off.
• Inequality has increased, but at different rates, among both women and men in the Mediterranean, to the point of eliminating the previously existing gap between them in levels of inequality.