It is possible to say that inequality studies generally focus on the post-industrialization period. However, the most important reference that attract economic historians' attention to the pre-industrial period and perhaps encourages them to study the course of long-term inequality in recent years is Zanden's study of the Dutch Republic. Zanden studied the pre-industrial Netherlands and observed an increase in inequality accompanying long-term economic expansion. Thus he suggested that a “Super Kuznets Curve” can be defined that connects pre-modern with industrial economic growth. The "Super Kuznets Curve" paved the way for literature on inequality, which is assumed to be stagnant, especially for the pre-industrial period. The Super Kuznets Curve has been questioned by economic historians in two different ways. First, if economic growth and the increase in inequality acted together, what happened to inequality during the periods of economic contraction? Secondly, if the main trend in the pre-industrial period was indeed the increase of inequality, was this accompanied by a continuous economic growth? In other words, was the economic expansion sine qua non for inequality?

Economic historians have created a long-term literature on inequality covering the late medieval and early modern periods by examining the left side of the Kuznets curve. It should be note that a significant part of these studies contradicts the Kuznetsyan paradigm and causes economic historians to rethink about the possible explanations of inequality. It should also be noted that the content of inequality is at least as important as its evolution. Ottoman historians have tended to be imagine an Ottoman society in which inequality was low for many reasons, such as land ownership regime, egalitarian Islamic law of inheritance until recently. But in recent years, some scholars who used tax and probate records as primary sources, have shown that the Ottoman Empire also witnessed serious inequality. These studies are very important in the context of comparisons with Western literature. It is the aim of this paper both to contribute to this literature and to understand the content of inequality.

Probate records provide invaluable insights into the lives of common people. These are court records created after an individual’s death that regarding the distribution of the estate. Firstly, it should be emphasized that these documents are personal. Additionally, in Ottoman practice, if the separation principle of property in Islam is taken into account, women's whealth may not be a direct indicator of the level of prosperity they are in. Therefore, the most reasonable approach would be to compare women with each other. On the other hand, it can be expected that probate records for men would be more capable of reflecting household wealth.

This study is based on 919 probate records found scattered in Galata court registers. A significant part of these belongs to men (675), while the limited part belongs to women (244). Firstly the net worth used in the study is calculated by subtracting all liabilities from all assets. And then, these amounts is adjusted for inflation. There are different measures to describe inequality. Firstly, the GINI coefficient, which is the most common measure, was used. Because it provides the opportunity to compare with different regions. These results show that there was a remarkable inequality in Galata in the first half of the 17th century with 0,71 Gini score. It can even be said that it was more unequal than similar port cities. But beyond the GINI, different methods were also used to understand the content of inequality. Theil Index offers a more nuanced perspective on inequality because it is naturally decomposable by population subgroups. Thus, it is possible to evaluate inequality within and between groups by using information such as title and place of residence found in probate records. Theil index results show that inequality within groups accounts for very much more of total inequality than inequality between groups does. This result confirms that although some titles have a significant relationship with wealth, the titles should not be considered as a direct determinant of wealth.

Last exercise in exploring the nature of inequality is to decompose inequality by wealth type. There are seven types of wealth: real estate, investments, debts, receivables, cash, slaves and moveable goods. The Gini coefficient for each wealth source, its share of total wealth, the percentage contribution of each to the overall Gini, and the elasticity of total inequality to an increase of one percentage point in the source of wealth was examined. According to the findings in male sample, moveables were more equally distributed than other forms of wealth and had an equalizing effect on the distribution of total wealth. Real estate and slaves, no matter how unequally distributed, they were in favor of poors. Indebtedness, which can be thought of as a negative wealth component, has worked against the poors. In females, moveables goods were more equally distributed and had equalizing effect on total inequality similarly. It must be remarked, receivables had unequalizing effect on total inequality. Considering that an important part of these receivables is “mahr”, it can be said that the application of mahr was in favor of the rich. 

To summarise, this article proposes that Galata had serious inequality in the first half of the 17th century. The wealth distribution was more polarized among man than women. There is a significant relationship between the net wealth and having a high-class military title, sayyid, pilgrim, and captain titles as a professional identity, but still the total inequality was largely due to inequality within groups. Lastly one should not expect that a source of wealth, which has a relatively high Gini, will directly increase total inequality. For example, slaves were dramatically unequally distributed but favored poors in both males and females.