Polarization and Gaps in Income and Assets: Policy Implications

Abstract

As real estate policy has emerged as a major social policy due to the recent rise in housing prices and the general public's interest in the wealth gap is increasing, this study examines the polarization phenomenon, which had previously been observed mostly in terms of income, from the perspective of assets. Since it is difficult to define what asset polarization is, we attempted to analyze the phenomenon of asset polarization based on the framework of analyzing income polarization, and also looked at the current status of distribution and disparity. Our analysis of the indicators showed that income polarization has decreased over time, especially in disposable income. To be sure, the disparities that still remain in market income require further examination from an income perspective that focuses more on gaps than on polarization. In contrast to income, indicators such as the asset Gini coefficient and the asset quintile ratio have increased in recent years in both total and net assets. We attempted to better understand the structure of asset polarization and gap using the asset composition ratio by quintile and drew some policy implications.