Wages Inequality in the Republic of Macedonia in a Post Crisis Period

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show the distribution of net wages in the Republic of Macedonia and whether the great world economic crisis of 2008 has had an impact on the inequality in the distribution of wages. In this paper it is analyzed the level of inequality in the distribution of wages in Macedonia in 2008 as a year when the economic crisis started in the last quarter, in 2012 as the year in which GDP still has had a negative rate of economic growth and in 2014, when the economy maintained positive economic growth. In the three selected years the analysis is based on examination of the inequality in the distribution of the paid net wages. In the paper, the analysis of inequality in the distribution of net wages is based on determining the distribution of frequencies, constructing the Lorenz curve and the Gini index calculation. The results show that there is a quite expressed inequality in the distribution of net wages in Macedonia, whereas the estimated Gini index is 27.98 in 2008, 26.76 in 2012 and 25.88 in 2014. Thus, it should be kept in mind that the inequality in the distribution of total income is higher and in the analyzed period the Gini index is greater than 40. This points the fact that Macedonia has the highest inequality in the distribution of income compared to all EU member states and candidate countries for EU membership.