ABSTRACT
Empirical measurement is key to obtaining a better understanding of the extent and the development direction of inequality and its spatial sorting. However, many methodological decisions need to be made before accurate statistics can be provided. This chapter discusses the way in which information about inequality and segregation is commonly collected, measured and interpreted. It demonstrates how the most common ways of measuring inequality and segregation sketch only part of the picture. Inequality and segregation only provide static snapshots of the distribution of income or people, while income and residential mobility sketch a dynamic picture of the changes that people experience in income position and residential location. The level of spatial clustering attracts a lot of attention from policymakers because they consider contiguous concentration areas of minority groups to be more problematic as these could intensify the problems associated with a lack of evenness or interaction between groups.
