The report presents income statistics on both individuals and households. It highlights income distribution and income development in different groups up to and including the 2015 income year. Two introductory sections present incomes in a cross-sectional perspective and a final section presents income mobility in the period from 2000 to 2015. In short, the results show that:

Incomes have increased more for women than for men

In 2015, the median income of women, measured as total income from employment and business, was 82 percent of the income of men in the age group from 20 to 64 years. Since 2000, the inflation-adjusted income of women has increased by 34 percent, compared with 25 percent for men.

Large regional differences

People aged 20 to 64 years living in Danderyd had the highest income in 2015. On the other hand, the best progress from 2000 was made in Kiruna.

More people work at a greater age

In 2000, 22 percent of 66-year-olds had a salary income. In 2015, this share had increased to 43 percent.

The trend in income is good, but differences continue to grow

Since 1991, the real economic standard has increased by 58 percent. The development has not been as strong in all groups, resulting in increased income gaps. The proportion of people at risk of poverty increased in the same period, from 7 percent in 1991 to 15 percent in 2015.

In 2015, foreign born people had an economic standard corresponding to 77 percent of the economic standard of people born in Sweden. In 1991, the corresponding share was 90 percent.

Many persons with persistently low incomes

Roughly 30 percent of those who were in the lowest income decile in 2010 – that is, those who found themselves among the ten percent with the lowest net income – remained in this bracket also in the following five years. The corresponding share in the highest income decile was close to 45 percent. Women have a greater tendency than men to remain in decile 1 in the long term, while the reverse is true in decile 10. The persistency in decile 1 is somewhat higher for foreign born people. People that have attained a post-secondary education tend to have lower persistency in decile 1 and higher in decile 10 compared with people who have only attended compulsory school or upper-secondary school.

Income mobility evens out differences in income

An analysis of the effect of income mobility on differences in income shows that such differences decline by approximately 10 percent over a five-year period (2011–2015).