Poverty, wealth and income: Wealth rates in East and West Germany, 2005-2017

The proportion of people in households with a net income above the 200% wealth threshold has risen slightly in all Germany since 2005. Whereas the figures were almost unchanged between 2005 and 2009 at 7.7 to 7.8 per cent, from 2010 on there was an increase of 0.3 percentage points. Since then the wealth rate has been relatively constant at 8.1 per cent. In 2013 it rose to 8.2 cer cent and has not changed since then.

Over the years there has been no change in the large gap between the proportion of people in rich households in West and East Germany. In 2005 the difference was 4.9 percentage points, and in 2016 it was 4.3 percentage points.

In 2017, the difference between East an West Germany was only 3.8 percentage points, so the alignment was again stronger than in the preceding years. The recent tendency to closing the East-West gap is due to the increasing wealth rate in East Germany.

Until 2011 the data were based on the census in 1987. Since then the census 2011 has been used for the calculations. Therefore, data before and after 2011 are not fully comparable.

Further explanations

Wealth rate: the wealth rate is the proportion of people in the total population whose income is above the 200 per cent wealth threshold.

References

Federal Statistical Office