Income segregation in France: a geographical decomposition across and within urban areas

ABSTRACT

This article sets out the first comprehensive analysis of income segregation in France across the whole urban–rural continuum. Segregation is broken down by urban areas, their size and the types of municipalities (central/suburban/exurban/rural). A significant part of the segregation is due to differences across urban areas. Moreover, regression analyses show that non-negligible levels of segregation are observed in small urban areas. Finally, disparities between exurban and central/suburban areas have increased sharply, particularly in small urban areas. These results suggest it is necessary to reconsider the view that segregation is limited to Paris, and they call for a new design of anti-segregation policies.

KEYWORDS:

• income segregation
• residential segregation
• urban areas
• geographical decomposition

JEL:

• D31
• R20

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The income refers to gross income reported to the tax authorities before taxes and transfers. Censoring on top incomes is limited as tax statements are comprehensive. Some income may be generated abroad, however, but since we aggregate income into classes, this will not affect much high incomes that already belong the top 10% even without income not reported in France.

2. We use the EUROSTAT scale to calculate the number of consumption units: 1 unit for the first adult in the household, an additional 0.5 points for each person over 14 years, and an additional 0.3 points for each person aged 14 years or less.

3. There are more than 300,000 LRUs in France.

4. Even in small LRUs we have 100% coverage rate with exhaustive individual data (only the exact X–Y geolocation is not available).