Comments on: Income Distribution, 2003

By: Niels L Ellegaard

Niels L Ellegaard — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:20:41 +0000

Thank you for this graph. It is one of the most enlightening graphs on gapminder. I would love to see an updated version with more countries. Here are some ideas

* It would be nice to be able to draw the data with a linear axis.
* It would be nice to be able to draw the cumulative distribution graph that you use to get the GINI coeficient.
* It would be to be able to draw a probability density graph coresponding to the graph that you use to calculate the GINI coeficient. (In other words. take the present graph, multiply the probabilities with the income, and then normalize the data)

By: Adrian Ratnapala

Adrian Ratnapala — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:34:41 +0000

Very cool. What’s missing is any entry in Europe – you probably need to add the EU-as-whole. It’s hardly a tiddler.

By: Ramses van Wijk

Ramses van Wijk — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:10:23 +0000

couldn’t they have joined sub-saharan africa?

By: Uwe

Uwe — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:25:22 +0000

Clearly what is not shown here are very large incomes i.e. the ever larger inequality of income distribution. Salaries, for example in many European countries as well as the US have not risen as much for the larger population as compared to the incomes of capital owners. To the right the incomes above 1 Mio. plus are not shown? Why? What does income mean on this site?

By: Ravi Ram

Ravi Ram — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:41:36 +0000

A parallel presentation of the proportion or % of each population at different levels of income over time, rather than the absolute number, would also be useful and would address some of the concerns about misinterpreting (in)equitable distribution between countries.

By: Mandeep Sah

Mandeep Sah — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:12:17 +0000

Well not to mention, the work is great. Thanks.

And same as Surajit’s interest. I curious to know about the software.

By: Surajit Baruah

Surajit Baruah — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:09:25 +0000

The time series data sets are so well presented using these visualization technique. I see some mention of Flash software in case of “Human Development Trend” and “Income Distribution”. I want to know some more about the software used and how these visualization has been developed.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:28:51 +0000

Hey Folks,
I tried to download the PC version of this presentation (Income Distribution, 2003 ), but it looks like you may have the link set up incorrectly. Both links point to the Mac version of the app. FYI.

By: juh

juh — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:41:06 +0000

What about expressing the income with respect to some indices such as the “consumer price index” instead of dollars.

It would be more meaningful.

By: david

david — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:37:11 +0000

agree with Tom about the log scale; it distorts both the distribution and relative populations; eg the population of Indonesia is about 10 times that of Japan but it looks less than twice it on the motion chart.

but the principle of graphing time as time is so sensible – might it be even more informative to map space to space – then map the indicator such as income (or, more appropriately, assets per person) to a colour gradient on a geographical map that varies over simulated time?