While rich people in most developing countries have become proportionately richer over the past 30 years, in the Netherlands the income gap is relatively small and has hardly increased, according to a new OECD report.

In the US, the richest 1% in society have more than doubled their share of the total national income to 20% over the past 30 years. Britain, Canada, Ireland and Australia are similar to the US, the OECD says.

However, in the Netherlands, the top 1% share 6.3% of the total national income, which is only a fraction more than the 5.9% they earned in 1981. France and Spain show similar developments.

Reports

The research published last year by the University of Amsterdam showed that in 1977 the richest 10% of the population earned 5.1 times as much as the poorest 10%. But by 2011 this had stretched to 8.2%. Growth was fastest in the second half of the 1980s when the minimum wage and benefits were frozen, the researchers said.

A second report, based on figures from the national statistics office earlier this month, said the richest 1% of the Dutch population owned almost 23.4% of the country’s assets at the end of 2012 – up from 21.5% before the start of the economic crisis.

The figures show that the country’s richest people have increased their share of the nation’s wealth, despite falling house prices and stock markets, the researchers said.