Malaga is Spanish province with fastest-growing per capita income, but inequality remains high

Malaga leads the growth in per capita income in Spain in the period 2015-2023, as well as in the last year for which there are records (2023). The increase in these eight years was 49.1% or 12,950 euros per person (net, i.e. excluding taxes and contributions).

Thanks to this rise, it has climbed up a few places in the ranking, but not enough to get out of the bottom section: it occupies 39th position out of the 52 provinces in the list. Only 13 provinces are below it. Immediately above Malaga in the ranking is Seville and further down the rest of the Andalusian provinces. Huelva, Jaén and Almeria are at the very bottom of the list. The average net income in Malaga represents only 83.52% of the national average or 2,088 euros below.

This data is part of the atlas of household income distribution published by the national institute of statistics, the basis of the report that trade union CC OO has prepared with the aim of analysing the distribution of household income in Malaga.

Although the union celebrates the rise in per capita income, it highlights another worrying detail: Malaga is the fourth province in Spain with the highest rate of inequality among its inhabitants. In other words, wealth has grown, but it has not been distributed equally among people. Only Ceuta, Melilla and Madrid are worse than Malaga in this ranking. This conclusion was drawn by UMA researcher Elena Bárcenas in an interview with SUR: "Malaga's income growth is not inclusive and leads to people being left behind."

According to CC OO provincial secretary Fernando Cubillo, analysing equity in income distribution is "absolutely necessary". "It is a fundamental factor for the welfare of the population, as it guarantees economic resources for all; for social cohesion, because it reduces extreme disparities; and for economic growth, as it favours aggregate consumption and, therefore, productive investment," he said at the presentation of the report on 11 December.

How is inequality in income distribution measured? The most commonly used tool is the Gini index, which measures it from 0 to 100, where 0 represents perfect equality (everyone has the same income) and 100 perfect inequality (one has all the income). The lower the index, the better the distribution is, and the higher the value, the greater the inequality. Well, in 2023 this index was 32.1 at national level, 31.3 in Andalucía and 32.7 in Malaga.

"The comparison between Malaga and other provinces is very negative, because only three of them have a higher index, that is, we are the fourth Spanish province with more inequality in the distribution of household income," author of the report Antonio Turmo said. As for Andalucía, it is the fifth region with the greatest inequality among taxpayers, behind Madrid, Valencia, the Canary Islands and Catalonia.

The concept of income must be distinguished from that of salary, because they are not the same thing. Salary is one part of the income received by households: the main one, as it accounts for 58.3% of the income declared by Malaga residents. But there are other types of income: pensions account for 18.5% of the total; "other income" (rents, bank interest, dividends on shares or profits from the sale of goods) account for 14.9%; unemployment benefits account for 2.4% and other types of benefits, 6%. Malaga stands out for one thing: having a very high percentage, compared to the average, of this "other income" aspect linked. Only the Balearic Islands has a higher percentage (19.1%).

Paradoxically (and in line with the strong inequality that afflicts Malaga), the province is also above average in income from benefits: in unemployment only nine provinces in the country have a higher percentage (the remaining Andalusian provinces and the two provinces of Extremadura). In "other benefits", only five have a higher percentage (Jaén, Cadiz, Granada, Melilla and Seville). On the other hand, it is below average in earned income (60.6% at national level) and in pensions (20.2% at national level).

Although it does not expressly talk about poverty, the report includes indicators that reveal which part of the population is on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. In Malaga province, 6.4% of the population does not reach 5,000 euros per year (5.3% in Andalucía and 4.3% in Spain as a whole). Only three provinces have a higher percentage. If we talk about foreign residents, 18.7% of them do not reach this income threshold.

If we set the minimum at 10,000 euros, the percentage of the population in Malaga below this annual income is 21%, i.e. one in five people, compared to 20.7% in Andalucía and 15.8% in Spain. CC OO has highlighted that 43.8% of foreign residents are below this threshold, as a sign of the "factual discrimination of foreigners in the distribution of income".

According to the trade union, these figures suggest that "the lower income levels [in Malaga] are more significant than in other provinces", which is in turn related to the high socio-economic inequality also highlighted in the report.