The impact of demographic changes on income distribution in a developing country

"A common hypothesis regarding the distribution of income is that it tends to become more unequal in the initial and middle stages of economic development, in part because of demographic changes. However, previous studies of the effect of demographic changes on income distribution are not based on the underlying micro determinants of the income components." In the present paper, "the micro determinants of the probability of receipt and amount received conditional on receipt of four income components are estimated for three regions defined by the degree of urbanization. Five simulations of hypothetical demographic changes are conducted. The simulated effects on some of the regional income component distributions are fairly considerable in regard both to equalizing the distributions and increasing the shares of the poorest. However, the overall effects are regressive in both urban and rural regions."