Poverty in Ukraine
Poverty in Ukraine spiked after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and then substantially declined, before flattening in the twenty-first century.
History
In 2003, expectations of a poor grain harvest, led prices for staple food products to jump in the late spring. The initial reaction of the government was to control prices by restricting producer profitability and retail mark-ups. In some oblasts direct government intervention was replaced by money transfers to vulnerable groups.[1]
From 2008 to 2013, the level of poverty in Ukraine increased or decreased slightly. Its maximum value was 25.8% in 2011. Poverty increased sharply after the
Effects of COVID-19
The M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences ("Institute") published a study on the impact of COVID-19 on poverty. According to its results, by the end of 2020, 45% of the population of Ukraine fell into the poor category. The study claimed that this was 6.5 percentage points higher than in 2019. A pre-COVID-19 study forecast the poverty rate in 2020 to be 31.2%. The study stated that the real increase in poverty was 13.8 percentage points.[4]
The study predicted that close to half of Ukrainians would experience poverty in 2020 - 2021. The study defines poverty as income below the minimum subsistence level, which varied between an average of ₴3,237 and ₴3,636 ($115–130) per person in 2019. The "minimum subsistence level" is much higher than the legally defined average of ₴2,118 ($75), as established in June. The study pointed to pandemic as reversing recent trends of stable or declining poverty.
According to the study, 60% of respondents said they had financial losses – 38% had a decline in regular income, 16% lost income entirely and 14% lost their jobs. The results reflect May findings by the Ministry of Social Policy, which estimated that the poverty rate had increased to 45% in 2020.[5]
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
The start of the
Child poverty
As in families everywhere, those with children suffer disproportionately more from poverty. Children are often born to young parents with limited income. According to the
Regional distribution
The analysis of poverty was conducted using the household survey data for 2001 provided by the
References
- ^ a b Institute for economic research and policy consulting in Ukraine. German advisory group on economic reform
- ^ "Як змінювався рівень бідності в Україні останні 20 років". Слово і Діло (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2021-07-08.
- ^ "Не дурні, але бідні - рівень розвитку українців". BBC News Ukrainian (in Ukrainian). 12 December 2019.
- ^ Cherenko L.M., Polyakova S.V., Shishkin V.S., Reut A.G., Vasiliev O.A., Kogatko Y.L., Zayats V.S., Klimenko Y.A., Novosilska T.V. (2020). The impact of the coronavirus crisis on poverty: first consequences for Ukraine. Kyiv.
- ^ Sossov, Igor (2020-09-18). "45% of Ukrainians will fall below actual poverty level in 2020: study". Kyiv Post.
- RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 16 March 2022.
- ^ Shalal, Andrea; Zinets, Natalia; Lawder, David (2022-03-14). "Ukraine economy to contract sharply in 2022 due to war, IMF report says". Reuters.
- ^ Porter, Richard (31 March 2022). "EBRD sees war on Ukraine causing major growth slowdown". European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
- United Nations Children's Fund. 16 October 2020.