Poverty of Russian Households: what do RLMS data say?

New paper by Tatiana Karabchuk and Natalia Soboleva has been published in "Universe of Russia"

"Poverty of Russian Households: what do RLMS data say?”by Tatiana Karabchuk and Natalia Soboleva has just been published in Russian academic journal “Universe of Russia” (co-authored with T. R. Pashinova).

The paper deals with the complex quantitative estimation of poverty dynamics in Russia with the help of absolute, relative and subjective approaches. The objective is to analyze the dynamics of the poverty level during the period 1994-2009 using the RLMS data. The results show that the absolute poverty level decreased from 50% to 22% during the analyzed period whereas the relevant poverty level did not change. According to subjective approach to poverty, two thirds of Russians think that they live worse than average. These estimations are also stable during the analyzed period. The subjective approach mainly reflects the perception of material welfare but not quantitative estimation. More than half families in the poverty group have children. Families with one or two children ("new poor") form the specific category for Russia. The shares of poor in urban and rural areas became relatively the same during last years. Volga-Vyatka and West Siberian economic regions refer to the most deprived. To conclude, taking into account the structural and regional specifics is crucial for understanding the phenomenon of poverty. 

 

 

 

 

*** N. Soboleva, T. Pashinova, T. Karabchuk. Poverty of Russian Households: what do RLMS data say? // Universe of Russia, 2013, Vol. 22, № 1. P. 155–175 (in Russian)