Luxembourg: Has inequality grown enough to matter?

Luxembourg experienced remarkable economic performance and employment growth since the middle of the 1980s. Based on the development of the financial sector, this growth benefited massively from the contribution of immigrants and cross-border workers to the labour force. High economic growth led to a rapid improvement in the overall living standard of the resident population. During the same period, income inequality increased too, albeit modestly. Even if the country can still be considered a low inequality country by international standards, this trend is a potential source of concern. This chapter analyses the factors that explain the rise in income inequality between 1985 and 2010 and provides a descriptive account of whether this trend has been correlated with a set of social, cultural, and political outcomes. By and large, the positive impact of the improvement of overall living standards seems to have prevailed over the potential detrimental effects of increasing inequality.