The Gini-coefficient decreased by 1.9 point in 2018 (income year 2017), or from 25.3 to 23.4 according to the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for Iceland, after having increased by 1.2 points from 2016 to 2017 (24.1).The income quintile share ratio, which measures the difference in income between the top quintile and the bottom quintile, shows a similar trend, increasing from 3.3 in 2016 to 3.6 in 2017 and down to 3.2 in 2018. This indicates that inequality grew slightly between 2016 and 2017 and decreased between 2017 and 2018.
Although income inequality continues to be low in Iceland in European comparison these fluctuations do affect Iceland‘s position relative to the other countries. Iceland had the lowest income inequality in 2016, shared the fourth lowest seat with Finland in 2017 and shared the second lowest seat with Slovenia in 2018.
