Living Conditions and Poverty in Belarus: Concepts and Measures

Olga G. Grigorieva, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Pavel M. Grigoriev, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Socio-economic changes emerged in Belarus in the 1990’s dramatically affected the well-being of the households and contributed towards the deterioration of the demographic situation. Nowadays, the official statistics reports a steady progress in population welfare while the demographic situation does not reveal any signs of improvement. Does Belarus represent the case when demographic indicators do not improve as living standards rise, or the observed phenomenon is simply due to the measurement bias? In our work we are focusing on the methodological aspects of measuring living conditions and poverty. We assess the situation from different perspectives and propose using alternative approaches of measuring poverty such as the food-energy intake approach and the application of different types of equivalence scales. Our analysis is based upon the data of the "Income and Expenditures of Households" Survey and refer the period since 2000.