Income inequality and middle class in Sudan : some statistical facts 1996-2011

Abstract EN

The aim of this paper is to measure the level and extent of inequality in Sudan during the period 1990- 2011 , and to explore the size and the income share of middle class .Various measures of inequality such as Gini Coefficient , Palma ratio, median of household’s incomes are used , as well as, poverty head account measures such as the bottom 20% (Rawals poorest class) or alternatively as bottom 40%, to configure the size and the share of the middle class; the analysis used household data collected by Ministry of Labor Force.

It is found that Sudan falls among high Gini and Palma ratio Countries, and middle class was shrinking in terms of size and share.

Using the bottom 40% as cut-off point for poverty its size is found to be 10%, 14.5% and 12% for 1990, 1996 and 2011, respectively .It is suggested that the political and economic measures that were undertaken during the period of study played a major role in arriving at the observed evolution of income distribution and its level of inequality.