Measuring the socio-economic bipolarization phenomenon

The present paper emphasizes the differences between the Gini concentration coefficient [13] and a new bipolarization index proposed by [20], [21]. In practice, the Gini index is applied frequently to determine the poverty degree of the persons of a given population P. Although the pauperization and the polarization social phenomena are often very strong related, we shall prove that the bipolarization level of the individuals of P cannot be always accurately estimated by applying the classical Gini measure. Therefore, for evaluating the intensity of a polarization event is not adequate to use the Gini-type coefficients based on the Lorenz order.