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Romanian Academy Study: Romania included with six areas on the list of 20 poorest regions in Europe

Romania is included with six areas covering almost the entire country (except for the Bucharest-Ilfov area) on the list of the 20 poorest regions in Europe, according to the latest survey conducted by the Research Institute for Quality of Life within the Romanian Academy.

The aforementioned source reveals that the gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita was in Romania and Bulgaria in 2010 about 55 percent smaller than the average in the European Union (Eurostat, 2011). Oltenia tops the list of the poorest regions in Europe in 2011 with its purchasing power being surpassed by that of the Bulgarian region of Severoiztochen, the poorest EU region not so long ago.

The South-East Romania region (Braila, Buzau, Constanta, Galati, Tulcea and Vrancea) comes eight in the list of the 20 poorest European regions. The poorest region in Poland, ranking ninth with 39 percent of the average purchasing power of the EU countries, was toppled by South-Muntenia region in Romania including the counties of Arges, Calarasi, Dambovita, Giurgiu, Ialomita, Prahova and Teleorman. Fifteenth comes the North-West region of Romania with the counties Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj, Maramures, Satu-Mare and Salaj. (Eurostat, 2011).

This year, about 81 million people in the European Union (17 percent of the population, 19 percent of the children) lived in poverty, material deprivation and social exclusion, earning below 60 percent of the EU median income, according to data provided by the European Commission in 2011.

The document reads that almost a third of Romania's population (32 percent) reported an income below 70 percent of the median income in the EU area in 2007, falling in the zone of relative poverty. 'If we compare the income values to the national median income values, not the European average values, then 18 percent of the population earns less than 40 percent of the median national income value, being in a state of severe poverty. Romania was the state with the most impoverished population in the EU before and after the 2009 financial crisis,' reads the report of the institute. As a comparison, the people in a similar situation in the other EU countries (with an income below 40 percent of the median national income value) are much fewer such as 2 percent in the Czech Republic and 4 percent in Sweden and Ireland.

The definition of the relative poverty was agreed for the first time by the European Council in 1975: the people are living in relative poverty if their income and resources are so improper as to prevent them to achieve a life standard deemed acceptable by the society they live in. Due to poverty, they face the multiple detriments of unemployment, of too small an income, of improper shelter, detrimental health care, of lack of access to the permanent education system, to the cultural, sports and entertaining services. They are more often than not ostracized or cold-shouldered from those economic, social and cultural activities which are a general typical pattern for large categories of citizens and they cannot fully follow their fundamental rights due to the lack of economic means.

Only 25pct of Romanians own automobiles and 57pct telephones

Only a quarter of Romanians own automobiles and 57 percent telephones, reveal findings of a recent study called 'Poverty in Romania in a European context,' conducted by the Life Quality Research Institute of the Romanian Academy released on Wednesday. Citing from Eurostat 2010 statistics, the study mentions that only 10 percent of Spaniards do not own automobiles, 11 percent of French, 14 percent of Swedes 17 percent of Germans and 20 percent of British and Norwegians. At the opposite end, 48 percent of Slovakians do not own automobiles, 67 percent of Bulgarians and 75 percent of Romanians.

Romanians are also first among European citizens that do not own telephones, at 43 percent. They are followed by Bulgarians, 39 percent, Lithuanians and Hungarians, 10 percent. At the opposite end, all Swedes owns telephones and just 1 percent of the British, Spaniards, Germans and Norwegians do not have telephones.

Only 45 percent of Romanians and Bulgarians own washing machines, wile 99 percent of Spaniards have. Just 56 percent of Romanians can heat their homes and only 34 percent of them can cope with unexpected spending.

On the other hand, the percentage of homes in Romania that have their own bath and toilets does not exceed 60 percent. The study shows strong differences in home equipping, which is more balanced in the urban areas. Urban houses have relatively wide access to the public sewer system, natural gas grid and electricity grid. Nevertheless, 12 percent of the urban houses still do not have their own bath.

Out of the 7.4 million Romanian households, 44 percent are in the countryside, 88 percent of which do not have their own bath. An objective reason for the absence of baths in Romania's countryside houses is the lack of water supply and sewer systems. The National Statistics Institute reports that in 2009 only 13 percent of Romania's countryside houses were connected to a central sewer system, the lowest percentage in the European Union.

Families with children face most difficult economic situation

Families with children are facing the most difficult economic situation, reveals a survey 'The state of poverty in Romania in the European context', conducted by the Quality of Life Research Institute of the Romanian Academy, released on Wednesday. According to the study, families of four, with just a minimum wage, plus two child allowances, do never succeed to meet consumption requirements for a minimum subsistence, and much less those of a decent minimum standard of living.

The authors consider that the policy of maintaining a low minimum wage made inoperable the stimulating of employment because of the guaranteed minimum income policy.

Families who received only a minimum wage, plus two-child allowances, live at a level comparable with the families where adults have chosen not to work and who prefer to live on the guaranteed minimum income.

'However, if by its very low amount, the guaranteed minimum income is a last chance for biological survival, this does not make possible social subsistence - the latter social objective being associated to this type of social benefits in Western European countries', the study underscored.

On the other hand, the study reveals that in terms of coverage of needs related to the minimum level of decent living, the family of two retirees having average pensions was close to the real level of pensions afferent to year 1989 - and not even touching it - a level attained only in 2009, however briefly, because after 2009 pensions decreased significantly again.

The authors argue that, in the same period, the average salary per economy increased less and the weight of the average pension per net average salary was rising from 46 percent in 1989 to 56 percent in 2010, most of the increase coming in the period 2007 -2008.

'The reality is that the average net pension in the social security system did not allow the covering of a decent minimum of needs for a family of pensioners excepting the period after 2007, and this only in the situation when two average pensions were received by a family', the research highlighted.

The authors consider that 'poverty is not only an individual matter , but also of the community, manifested in the degradation and demoralization of human resources, and representing at the same time the main source of crime and violence'.

Also, survey data show that 'public discourse envisages an option that, translated into practice, will prove catastrophic: namely that prosperity can be achieved through an increase in social polarization and a contempt for large social segments on the poverty threshold : pensioners, children, the sick and even 'public sector staff' who are thus excluded from the economy.

Having a job does not guarantee keeping family above poverty line in Romania

Romania has the lowest minimum monthly wage in European Union, at 159 euros, reveals the latest study of the Life Quality Research Institute of the Romanian Academy (ICCV).'After 1990, poverty in Romania has expanded and deepened among the wage earners. Having a job does not consolidate the economic status of the employed and is no guarantee that the family is kept above the poverty threshold, a state of affairs that is persistent even in 2011,' the study says.

The study mentions that even a net average wage of RON 1,411 a month, as it was the case in February 2011, will still keep a family of two adults and two children in poverty if there is only one wage earner considered against ICCV standards, which are more austere than Western European standards of a decent minimum consumption basket.

Four-person families where there is one wage earner and two children drawing child benefits have never managed to meet their subsistence consumption needs, less so decent consumption, says the ICCV study.

The study says that Romania lagging behind Bulgaria in terms of the minimum industrial wage - 159 euros against 233 euros - is a determining factor of a more unequal wage income distribution.

In the UK, an employee living in poverty earns a minimum wage of 967 euros, in Austria living in poverty means earning a minimum wage of 937 euros, while the minimum wage in Poland is 326 euros and 604 euros in Portugal.

The poverty threshold in the EU is set at less than 60 percent of the average national wage. According to this definition, more than 16 percent of the EU's salaried population, or 79 million employees, are in such a situation, according to early 2010 statistics.

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.eu

Tags: percent situation living national income social median their economic decent family euros minimum families romanians telephones poverty children poorest regions areas romania academy study europe according region population european average research institute romanian