Lecture 12. SOCIOLOGY OF POVERTY

Poverty is one of urgent problems discussed in politics, society and science. And despite this fact, analysis of essence, causes, consequences of poverty and elaboration of practical recommendations on fight against it is of great importance for us.

This report is aimed at giving theoretical analysis of this problem, because even taking into account many publications in press and scientific literature one may make a conclusion that there is no common understanding of this issue. For example, there is no common assessment of number of poor people given by politicians, scientific manpower, statistic authorities, and journalists. Criteria of poverty are not elaborated clearly. Also, it is necessary to focus attention on some aspects of city poverty whereas city is considered to be a complicated social complex. In city one can see contrasts between various social groups. Thus, the subject of this theoretical research appears poverty in cities as a special phenomenon in modern society of Kazakhstan.

There is another significance that makes it necessary to study problems of poverty. Despite statements of some politicians, poverty in Kazakhstan is considered to have been existing ever. Moreover, there is no country which does not have poor people at all. What was really lacking in Kazakhstan before reforms of the 1990ies as a mass phenomenon is such chronic poverty that would mean “throwing away” from society - such another mode of life where representatives of poor families feel themselves “social outcasts”. Formation of this group of “outcasts”- socially excluded ones, comes not only because of homeless people or illegal migrants, but from intelligentsia of the society as well.

There are several approaches todefining the word POVERTY in scientific literature. First of all, there are two traditional approaches - absolute and relative. An absolute approach to problems of poverty assumes that there is some minimum set of products and things that are necessary for physical survival of a man. On its basis lies assessment of poverty limits as living wage. However, neither property nor other resources of family nor period of poverty that strongly affects real standard of life under conditions of one and the same incomes are not taken into account.

Relative approach envisages poverty as condition in which leading mode of life that is peculiar to members of the given society is impossible due to the lack of economic resources. On the basis of the analysis lies the set of testing privations, deprivation which is understood as condition in which unprofitable situation of an individual, family or a group on the background of community or whole society can be observed and proved.

There is another subjective approach that identifies poor people on the

self-estimation of material situation of the respondent. Using this method the questions for self-estimation of the level of well-being are asked and on the basis of received results one can make conclusion about the number of poor people in society of Kazakhstan and peculiarities of their viewpoints and situation. The usage of this approach simplifies and reduces the price of investigation, but strongly distorts real situation of poor layers of population. Besides, it is dangerous to use this method in Kazakhstan where old standards of life came out to be distracted in recent years and new standards of life of different layers of population are undergoing the process of formation. Self-estimation of material situation depends on correlation between pretensions and reality rather than on the level of well being. This phenomenon is more peculiar for large cities where there is a substantial gap in standards of consumption of different groups. Substantial gap is occurred among younger generation group who painfully accepts impossibility of realization of those living standards that are actively propagandized in the advertisements. Thus, three main approaches to the definition of poverty are used in science. But how do they truly match to what the condition of poverty for population and – taking into account the aims of this report – for poor layers of population in large cities of Kazakhstan is? This question is far not occasional. As show indications of investigations that were held in Kazakhstan and Russia, ideas of scientists and ordinary citizens about poverty are quite different. For example, however paradoxical that is, people do not associate living wage with notion “poverty”. According to estimation of urban population of the RK, poverty limit appeared to be one and half times lower than the level of living wage, that is population accepts living wage not as the level of physical survival, but as an income that makes it possible to live as everybody. It is necessary to mention about one more fact here. The matter is that the size of living wage varies in different regions of the country dependant on living cost in different cities and their economic situation.

Firstly, poverty is accepted and survived in different ways depending upon geographical situation, size of a city, its status, and ethnical structure. Though there is a lot of common features of the city poverty in Kazakhstan, they are peculiar to any type of communities.

Secondly, poverty in different societies and social communities has both common and specific characteristics associated with differences in standards of life and sociocultural traditions in different social communities. Hence, definition of essence of poverty, its invariant and specific signs, mechanism of origin and reproduction demands descriptive analysis in conditions of various types of social communities.

The sociological research was held by the author in five cities of Kazakhstan – Almaty, Astana, Aktobe, Oskemen, and Shymkent.

The research showed that the market aggravated the problems of poverty in the cities. Many social groups of population who had deprived of incomes and lost job suffered. A former layer of urban intelligentsia – doctors, teachers, and engineers – became new poor layers of population.

Reasons for this phenomenon were both objective – impossibility of getting a good job and education, politics of politicians – and subjective factors – indecision, laziness, passiveness and unwillingness to work under pressure.

Moreover, the reason of more or less importance is disintegration of the USSR. This problem did not exist in administrative management system of the USSR. It was not widely discussed and the problem was considered to be attribute or negative phenomenon that is peculiar only to capitalist system, but by no means as characteristic feature of socialist system where ubiquitously were raised slogans about socialism as society of “equality and justice”. It is natural that the USSR was also the state where significant part of population lived in conditions of poverty. This part captured people classified according to generally demographic features – age, health, loss of a breadwinner, high pressure on an employee an so on. However, poverty in postsoviet area aggravated and intensified after disintegration. New sovereign states underwent economic, social and political crisis caused by the destruction of old economic and political system. New market economic mechanisms did not work at once - and this led to a difficult situation increasing the rate of unemployment, intensifying economic chaos and other negative phenomena. At present the economy of Kazakhstan is undergoing the process of development and the country is stepping a more normal condition. At the meanwhile, there are many poor people in the RK.

So what is the reason of poverty? Many people raise this question and come to different answers. It was already mentioned that expensiveness, unemployment, low salary, state of being socially unprotected make people poor. The government cannot support these layers substantially, although there are made some measures. If we add theft, corruption, crime to this list, we can take a tragic situation Kazakhstan stands now at. What is the way out? There are not found yet the ways of getting out from economic, moral and political crisis. We rely on foreign investments, credits which can play some positive role.

Possibly state private enterprises will work in a more efficient way. Production staff, private entrepreneurs, foreign companies and an individual – we all must hope that something should be done to come out from poverty. Unfortunately, there is hope, but few strategies are realized at present and people are continuing to be poor.

The respondents indicate the reasons of poverty as follows:

<!--[if!supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->economic unstable condition in the state – 61.7per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]-->high cost of goods in comparison with a low rate of salary – 55.7 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->3. <!--[endif]-->absence of efficient work of social institutions of the state – 50.4 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->4. <!--[endif]-->inadequate growth of living limit in conditions of modern social and economic situation – 41.7 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->5. <!--[endif]-->absence of places of work – 37.4 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->6. <!--[endif]-->dependent mood among population – 16.5 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->7. <!--[endif]-->unwillingness to work – 13.9 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->8. <!--[endif]-->low quality of work force connected with lowered availability of medical service – 12.2

<!--[if!supportLists]-->9. <!--[endif]-->low level of staff qualification and quality of education at all – 9.6 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->10. <!--[endif]-->unfavourable ecological condition in the cities – 2.6 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->11. <!--[endif]-->all enumerated reasons – 15.7 per cent

<!--[if!supportLists]-->12. <!--[endif]-->it is a difficult question for me – 1.7 per cent.

Who is classified as poor class if we group population? Firstly, to this class fall low-paid and low-qualified workers and employees with the low educational level accordingly.

Secondly, they are unemployed people who nearly do not have no sources of income or do not have at all. They look for job all the time and when they find it, some of them are occupied in small commerce with the aim somehow to survive.

Thirdly, they are nearly all the pensioners. In current conditions average pension does not exceed 5,000 KZT with the exception of those of military pensioners. Overwhelming majority of pensioners live very poorly.

Fourthly, they are students of higher and middle specialized educational institutions many of whom do not have other sources of existence except grants, which are not given regularly. Grant of a student does not exceed 2,200 and 3,200 KZT per month. This amount of money is sufficient for having lunch only 20 times in student canteen. The student has also to have supper, purchase clothes and pay for living in hostel not taking into account other expenses. If parents do not support a student, he just cannot study. In short, a student is a very poor person in modern Kazakhstan.

Fifthly, to a poor class can be related major part of humanitarian intelligentsia – teachers, doctors, painters, artists, scientists and other professional groups who have low salaries and do not have other sources of income. In conditions of the growth of prices for products and goods they are becoming poor from day to day.

Sixthly, under this group can be classified also unsuccessful entrepreneurs who had bankruptcy. In condition of market relations one becomes poor and other becomes rich.

More and more people are becoming poor in our society. We are turning to a country of poor people having immense area – the 7^th place in the world according to territory, not large population reaching approximately 17mln citizens – the 145^th place in the world according to population – and large reserves of raw materials. Kazakhstan took the first place according to production of chrome, tungsten, molybdenum, and copper, the third place according to production of coal and one of leading places in production of oil, the second place after Russia according to production of grains in the former USSR. According to investigated oil reserves Kazakhstan takes one of the leading places in the world. Boosted development of western cities is owing to oil production. Gold and other metals are extracted in the cities. Kazakhstan is becoming poor despite having colossal reserves of raw materials and qualified specialists and scientific staff and other possibilities.

How many poor people are there in the cities of Kazakhstan? There are both official and unofficial data. The data are given by the UNO, statistics agencies, economists, and sociologists and by specific social researches. Unfortunately, these data do not coincide with each other and the gap between them is substantial. We can take the number from 20 up to 45 per cent by uniting these data. The figures are substantial.

Regarding the structure of poor class in the cities of Kazakhstan we can see that it is differential. The upper layer of poor class comprise people who have low-paid job – whether physical or intellectual – dwelling, more or less good clothes and nourish normally. Nevertheless, these poor people – teachers, doctors, and drivers of public transport and so on - hardly make both ends meet. There are people in poor class who has a very poor material situation. Many of them are hungry. This is known as “extreme poverty”. Definite part of this layer begs, leads miserable mode of life, rummages in rubbish, sleeps wherever one can sleep and steals.

A higher size of poverty was observed in 1998 when 39 per cent of population had incomes lower than the living limit. By the year 2004 this figure was gradually declining showing the indication 19.8 per cent.

Considering that labor incomes constitute almost ¾ of all money incomes of the population, more than 2/3 of which are incomes of the hired laborers, it should be acknowledged that unemployment adds significantly to causes of poverty. According to the data provided by the Agency of Statistics for 2003-2004, there was noticeable conjunction between the level of unemployment and poverty, marked relatively to a minimum wage, showing that decrease of unemployment by 1% ensure decrease of poverty by 4,2%. Interregional differences are still significant. The most favorable poverty situation in the country is in Astana – 1,8%, and Almaty – 2,9%.

Sociological analysis of poverty in the cities of modern Kazakhstan witnesses that its quality characteristics in recent years started to change. And first of all, this includes further decrease of incomes of the poor and the population, linked to this group, which means transfer from poverty to extreme poverty.

Imperfection and inefficiency of the mechanism of prevention of this occurrence lead to deformation of the whole society, its value orientation, abilities of social identification. Now and then the authorities neglect poverty problems. Absence f structural reforms cause freezing of whole branches, leading to favorable conditions for sustainable poverty. This means that the employees from these branches loose any hope for changes in their situation, and don’t change their jobs and places of residence.

Extreme poverty, rapid increase of destitution in conjunction with economic problems, financial in particular, in many cases led to changes, and sometimes to a loss of social positions of different groups of society. During the collapse period even the most intellectual layers of society joined the poor: scientists, education and healthcare professionals, highly qualified employees and technical personnel of the military complex. Due to this professional level decreases. Highly qualified personnel go on to work at any jobs, in the only strive to support themselves and their families. The status of a range of professions with a high education background decreases. The skills of separate employees and groups of employees diminish. People have to change their jobs due to uncertainty and instability of their economic situation.

Decrease of moral qualities, and particularly moral and other requirements to the ways and means of earnings, becomes of the major problems with aggravation of poverty.

Aggravation of poverty, extreme poverty, increase of unemployment caused negative impact onto a social life of people. Poverty slowly becomes a sustainable feature of society, and it leads to deformation of social structure, creates obstacles to creation of its new forms. Diversification of the society to the previously not researched groups like the deceived depositors, the poor, mothers of soldiers at war, etc., rises. In other words, the breach of orientation of the older social layers and groups is obvious.

The background of these changes reveals formation of the poorest stratum of society. Different layers of society appear – the migrants, the homeless, and the chronic unemployed.

According to sociological survey, none of the respondents had any problems with definition of the criteria of poverty. Below are their opinions:

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Inability to meet their basic requirements (in food, clothing, housing, etc.) – 67,8%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Absence of stable earnings and constant place of work – 48,7%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Absence of additional sources of income, except salaries, pensions and scholarships – 40,9%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Limited access to material wealth – 38,3%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Limited access to the welfare of non-material character (cultural isolation, limits in selection of education and professional careers) – 28,7%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Absence of ability to freely move within a country and abroad – 16,5%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Absence of means for purchase of luxury and prestige goods – 13,0%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->All of the above mentioned criteria – 15,7%.

In spite of the fact that major part of respondents propose that the poverty is one of major social problems, only 37,4% of them would count themselves as the poor. 28,7% of them define their situation as lower than “average living standards”, and only 8,7% have checked an answer, where the level of living standards is defined as “below the poverty line”.

Not withstanding the “optimistic” picture, many o those, who determined their living standards as average, are people aged under 30 (38,3%), who don’t have families and major expenditures, connected to its maintenance.

The results of this research show that respondents question the effectiveness of the social policy of the state. Only 4,3% of the interrogated supported the possibility of full liquidation of poverty (compare with 21,7% of those who think that the government should not try to solve this problem, as it is a versatile and insoluble task). Many believe that it is impossible to exterminate poverty, but it is possible to decrease its level.

Nevertheless, decrease of the poverty level in the country is possible, and respondents marked the following measures:

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Increase of the direct address support of the most vulnerable layers of society – 34,8%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Introduction of the new jobs by means of development of small enterprises – 31,3%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Adoption of additional stat programs on fighting poverty – 31,3%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Increase of efficiency of the employment bodies – 26,1%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Introduction of the centers of raising the level of professional skills and qualification, and temporary employment – 19,1%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Improvement of the system of distribution of the state incomes – 11,3%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Improvement of legislative base in the field of social policy – 8,7%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Development of the state system of social guarantees – 11,3%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Improvement of activity of legal institutions on social protection – 7,8%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Increasing the level of natural types of support of the society – 6,1%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Increasing the system of investments to the social sector – 3,5%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Introduction of services of psychological help rehabilitation – 1,7%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Overcoming regional discrepancies – 0,9%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->All of the above mentioned criteria – 13,0%;

<!--[if!supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->Couldn’t give an answer – 9,6%.

The number of the poor in the Kazakhstan’s cities increases. And it all takes place in the country with vast territory, fewer population and rich natural resources.

Economic poverty slowly leads (and has already led to) to the educational regress of society. At present, the number of schools in Kazakhstan decreases, many pre-school facilities, libraries and other cultural institutions are being closed.

Considering the above mentioned, we may strongly propose that the undertaken sociological survey still leaves much space for definition of poverty in Kazakhstan, and consecutively for finding the exact number of the poor in the Kazakhstani society. The prolonged panel study is required to take the full research. And it is quite hard to take the poverty data obtained from the 5 cities for the whole country or even some separate urban groups of the poor.

In 2000-2002 the Republic of Kazakhstan has adopted the Program on fight with poverty, which emphasized on decrease of poverty by means of introduction of new labor places. The Program on fight with poverty for 2003-2005 is functioning at present time, and it outlines the growth of the rates of wages and pensions on the basis of consecutive increase of their minimum level as the key factors to decrease poverty along with providing direct social support to the low-profitable layers of society.

References:

1.Patterson J. America’s Struggle against Poverty, 1900-1994. Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity<

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