CEEG Seminar Series: The evolution of inequality in Mozambique - 1996/97–2019/20

On Wednesday, 25 October 2023, Giulia Barletta, Research Assistant at the Development Economics Research Group (DERG), University of Copenhagen, and Inclusive growth in Mozambique (IGM) Resident Advisor will present a recent IGM paper on the evolution of inequality in Mozambique between 1996/97 and 2019/20 (WIDER Working Paper 151/2022).

The seminar is part of the CEEG Seminar Series, organized under the Inclusive growth in Mozambique (IGM) programme. The seminars offer a forum to share and discuss ongoing research on topics related to the work of the IGM programme and to foster a culture of research at the faculty and at UEM in general.

The seminars take place at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM). It is a public event open to everyone. The presentation will be given in Portuguese.

About the study

After decades of war, ending in 1992, Mozambique embarked on a path of sustained economic growth and substantial poverty reduction. However, these positive dynamics started to revert from 2015, with per capita growth rates getting close to zero and household real consumption reducing in all areas of the country. Meanwhile, inequality stagnated in the period 1996/97–2008/09, before markedly increasing afterwards. In this study, the authors some of the most relevant indicators of inequality for Mozambique and their trends over the last 25 years. 

Using real per capita consumption as the main welfare aggregate, the authors look at various indicators of inequality, including the consumption distribution, percentiles and percentile ratios, growth incidence curves, Lorenz curves, and Gini indices at the national and subnational levels. In addition, the discussion is related to spatial inequality between urban and rural areas and between regions. Overall, it was found that until 2014/15 consumption increased for the whole population, but it did so much more for richer households, leaving the worse-off behind; conversely, in the last few years consumption has reduced across the distribution, but the relative consumption gap between better- and the worse-off people has continued to increase.