Official and Subjective Poverty in Russia: the Impact of 2020–2021 Events

Official and Subjective Poverty in Russia:
the Impact of 2020–2021 Events


Belopashentseva P.V.

Intern Researcher at the Centre for Stratification Studies, Higher School of Economics Institute for Social Policy, Moscow, Russia pbelopashentseva@hse.ru

ID of the Article:


Based on the data of the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE).

Rubric: Social policies. Social structure

For citation:

Belopashentseva P.V. Official and Subjective Poverty in Russia: the Impact of 2020–2021 Events. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2023. No 10. P. 78-90


 Full Text.


Abstract

The article examines the impact of 2020–2021 events on official and subjective poverty. The expediency of using the term “official poverty” to refer to all methodological approaches (absolute until 2021 and relative from 2021) used by the government to establish the poverty line is substantiated. Based on the data of the Russian monitoring of the economic situation and health of the population of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, it is shown that official poverty showed an atypical decline during the crisis period, which, as might have been expected, was the result of a change in the methodology for determining the poverty line and the impact of social policy measures. Subjective poverty kept the pre-crisis level. The relation between officially and subjectively poor groups remained stable, the group portraits also did not show significant transformations, and the changes in living conditions are largely related to the habits of the self-isolation period. The revealed differences in the scale and dynamics of official and subjective poverty once again emphasize the importance of a multidimensional analysis.


Keywords
subjective poverty; official poverty; absolute poverty; poverty line; deprivation

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Content No 10, 2023