Salaries Spain vs Sweden

I many times get questions regarding the salaries in Spain vs. Sweden (in both countries).

Normally, I say that the "lowest level" in Sweden is higher than in Spain (i.e., low income jobs are higher remunerated in Sweden) while the salaries are higher in Spain on the other side of the scale.

I never actually digged into this more in detail before.

Today I saw a new report from INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas) which made me look into the salaries in the two countries more in detail.

Average salary Spain: 1881 €/month

Average salary Sweden: 3355 €/month

Salaries for each percentile

How to read this graph:

• This graph defines the salary per percentile
• I.e., 10% of the Spaniard (orange staple) earns less than 655€ per month (and 10% of the Swedes earn less than 311 €)
• 20% of the Spaniards earn less than 972 € (in Sweden, the max salary in the same percentile is 1117 €)

Note:

• The Spanish number is based on "asalariados" (salary receiving persons) while the Swedish number is based on any person between 20-65 that has had any income.
• That might explain why the salary for the lowest percentile is lower in Sweden than in Spain
• i.e., in those 10% is also included people that had no income in the case of Sweden, while the Spanish case only includes people with a salary.

Another, maybe easier way, to do this comparison would be to see in which percentile you belong with a certain salary. (Below)

How to read this graph:

This graph shows the percentile based on certain salary (based on available data, I have used the Spanish salaries for the different percentiles above).

• While 10% of the Spaniards have a salary below 655€, 13% of the Swedes has a salary below that limit.
• As mentioned below, this might be due to the fact that the Swedish statistics also include persons with no income.
• Interesting to see is how 60% of the Spaniards have a salary below 1837€ (while only 32% of the Swedes have a salary below that limit.
• 10% of the Spaniards have a salary above 3354€ while 24% of the Swedes earn more than so.

Note:It would be interesting to do the same study based on Stcokholm vs Madrid (and, maybe, also based on activities or age-ranges.... but that is for another day)

Sources:

SVT
INE
Medlingsinstitutet