According to recent data, nearly half of Ireland’s wealth is concentrated in the top tenth of households, demonstrating the magnitude of wealth disparity in the nation. The Central Bank’s first-ever published Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA) reveal this detail, showing a bi-annual examination of household wealth growth in Ireland from 2013 to 2023.
The data indicates that the total net wealth of Irish households has surged to just under €1.079 billion in Q2 2023, reflecting more than double the amount from the decade before. This escalation of wealth eclipses that of the overall euro area, which saw an increase of 54%, amassing a total wealth of €21 billion over the same timeframe.
The top decile of Irish households owns wealth that is over five times the amount of the combined lower 50%, with nearly half of the nation’s total net wealth (€518 billion). The Central Bank points out housing as the most significant asset source for Irish families. For households in the bottom five and middle four deciles, it makes up 74% of total assets, and for the top tenth, 44% of wealth.
Over the last decade, the value of housing assets owned by households has also more than doubled, reaching €727 billion by Q2 2023. Still, the housing wealth distribution remains lopsided. The wealthiest tenth of households own a third of total housing wealth, the bottom half owns 14%, and the majority share goes to middle-bracket wealth households, owning 53%.
The Central Bank also observes a heavy wealth concentration among property owners. A staggering 97% of total household wealth belongs to homeowners, leaving only 3% to renters or those who live rent-free.
Despite these severe inequalities, there’s been a noticeable decrease in wealth disparity over the past ten years, primarily due to the significant growth in bottom-half household wealth. The wealth share for these households has increased from 2% to 9%, while the wealth share for the top tenth has slightly reduced from 58% to 48%.
The net worth of the bottom half of households has been multiplied near ten-fold, leaping from €10 billion in the second quarter of 2013 to €98 billion in the same quarter of 2023. Conversely, top decile households have seen their wealth barely double over the same duration.
The favourable shift in wealth for lower-income households has resulted from a decline in debts. Whereas, wealth growth for the wealthiest 10% of households has been propelled by an upswing in asset values, predominantly housing.
The Data Wealth Accounts (DWA) for Ireland have been devised by fusing the quarterly sector accounts with household survey data collected by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The European Central Bank (ECB) issued comparable data on a European scale in January this year.
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