Who Is a Top Earner And For How Long? Top Income Mobility in Switzerland

Many countries have witnessed an increase in income shares going to the top 1%, yet little is known about the prevalence of these households at the top. This paper aims at addressing this question in the case of Switzerland, where previous research by Föllmi and Martínez (2016) has found that top income shares have been rising since the mid-1990s, and have become more volatile. Using full-population social security data, I document labor income mobility patterns within the top decile and the rest of the distribution over the period 1981-2010. In addition, I shed light on gender inequality at the top, and the share of foreign-born and self-employed among top earners in Switzerland. I find that persistence has been slightly decreasing. With a share of only 5%, women are strongly under-represented among the top 0.1% of earners. The share of foreign-born among the top 0.1% rose from 20% to 40% in the 2000–2010 period.