Rural England
Income inequalities
Key points
- Throughout the income distribution, households in rural districts have, on average, a slightly greater income than households in urban districts.
- Anecdotally, it is sometimes said that the income distribution of households in rural areas is 'U-shaped', with lots of rich people, lots of poor people and relatively few in-between. Analysis of the income distribution does not really support this view: whilst slightly more than 20% of the population in rural districts in England are in the UK's richest fifth, somewhat less than 20% of the population in these districts are in the UK's poorest fifth.
- See the UK indicator on income inequality.
Graph 1: By amount
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Graph 2: By share
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Rural/urban ratios (urban = 10)
Not applicable.
Definitions and data sources
The graphs
For each type of local authority district, the first graph shows the income of households at three points in the net income distribution, namely:
- low income: 10th percentile (i.e. 10% of the population in the group of local authorities received a lower income);
- mid income: 50th percentile (i.e. the median income for the group of local authorities); and
- high income: 90th percentile (i.e. 10% of the population in the group of local authorities received a higher income).
Income is disposable household income, after deducting housing costs. All the data is equivalised (adjusted) to account for differences in household size and composition. The data is at 2007/08 prices.
For each type of local authority district, the first graph shows, the second fifth graph shows the proportion of the population whose net income is in the lowest and highest UK income quintiles (fifths).
Level of the data
Lower tier local authorities (districts), as classified by the DEFRA 2009 classification system. Both the DEFRA classification rules and their results by local authority can be found on the page on rural/urban classification systems.
Source
Households Below Average Income, DWP.
The numbers
Graph 1
As shown on the graph.
Graph 2
| Type of district | In the UK's poorest fifth | In the UK's richest fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 'Very rural' districts | 16% | 21% |
| 'Mostly rural' districts | 17% | 23% |
| 'Part rural' districts | 16% | 23% |
| Urban districts | 23% | 20% |