Differences in standard of living and wealth rank socio-professional groups: situations range from households only composed of economically inactive persons, who are most at risk of poverty and rarely manage to acquire assets, to households predominantly composed of managers or professionals, whose median wealth is three times higher than for the population as a whole and for whom the risk of poverty is virtually zero.

Some groups have particular economic situations: households with small self-employed people (farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers) have more dispersed incomes and on average low incomes in relation to their higher wealth. Property and cars account for a larger proportion of the assets of households predominantly composed of basic employees or blue-collar workers.

Over the last fifteen years, inequalities in living standards between socio-professional groups have narrowed slightly. Managerial households are slightly less likely to be affluent than before. This is because they are less affected by the overall ageing of the population and because the standard of living of some managers in the public sector has eroded.

At the same time, differences in assets have widened to the detriment of households consisting solely of a basic employee, a blue-collar worker or an inactive person, who have been less likely to be able to access property ownership and thus benefit from the strong rise in property values over the period.