Recently I've been having some conversations about the relationship between development and salaries in the countries worldwide, where one measures "development" by using the HDI.
I want to check the following hypothesis: the most developed countries (in the sense of HDI) have most horizontal distribution of salaries; i.e: the average distance between the salaries of non professional and professional workers (in the sense of the skills obtained regularly at higher education) is small when comparing to the underdeveloped countries or to the world average, regardless of the "per capita income". Even more: it becomes smaller as most developed is the country in consideration.
I don't know about sources where to find information relative to this hypothesis. Does anybody know something about this issue?
Thanks.
As an observation: I think that one should measure the "distance between averages of salaries of professional and non professional workers" by using proportions but not differences. I mean: a country A will have a longer distance than a country B if the proportion of averages of salaries between these groups in the country A is greater than the same proportion in the country B (of course: several discussions are still to be made, e.g: whether two groups is sufficient or one needs to distinguish more groups depending on the level of qualification. You can consider this as a part of the question too.)
The reason is that the cost of living in each country seems to be closely related to the size of the salaries an the strength of the currency, and absolute differences could be greater in a "most horizontal" (where people have more similar salaries) country than in a "vertical" one if the minimal salary in the former is much more big.
I want to check the following hypothesis: the most developed countries (in the sense of HDI) have most horizontal distribution of salaries; i.e: the average distance between the salaries of non professional and professional workers (in the sense of the skills obtained regularly at higher education) is small when comparing to the underdeveloped countries or to the world average, regardless of the "per capita income". Even more: it becomes smaller as most developed is the country in consideration.
I don't know about sources where to find information relative to this hypothesis. Does anybody know something about this issue?
Thanks.
As an observation: I think that one should measure the "distance between averages of salaries of professional and non professional workers" by using proportions but not differences. I mean: a country A will have a longer distance than a country B if the proportion of averages of salaries between these groups in the country A is greater than the same proportion in the country B (of course: several discussions are still to be made, e.g: whether two groups is sufficient or one needs to distinguish more groups depending on the level of qualification. You can consider this as a part of the question too.)
The reason is that the cost of living in each country seems to be closely related to the size of the salaries an the strength of the currency, and absolute differences could be greater in a "most horizontal" (where people have more similar salaries) country than in a "vertical" one if the minimal salary in the former is much more big.