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Patterns and Determinants of Wealth Inequality in Late-Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Evidence from Census-Linked Probate Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Livio Di Matteo
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This article shows that late-nineteenth-century wealth inequality was associated with rising wealth levels supporting the existence of a Kuznets-type curve, but this curve is not unconditional.The tendency of wealth inequality to vary with age means that wealth inequality was also a function of the changing age composition of the population and may have been the result of portfolio allocation decisions across the life cycle. Canada's population “aged” during the late nineteenth century, with the proportion of population under age 20 dropping from 53% in 1871 to 43% by 1911. The general aging of the population could have increased inequality in both wealth and income. These results follow recent work by Jeffrey Williamson (1998), who argues that Kuznets curves are not unconditional. In other words, as the results of this article confirm, wealth inequality is the outcome of a complex economic process, not a single determinant cause.

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Articles
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Social Science History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , Fall 2001 , pp. 347 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2001 

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