Have you ever thought about why many CIS countries have such a low standard of living for the population? What, in fact, are the causes of poverty and material disadvantage of citizens? Indeed, in the world you can find many examples of countries that are much more deprived of resources, but for some reason their citizens live much better. Is it really only the authorities, the state, who are to blame for everything, but nothing can be changed? Let's try to understand this topic in more detail.

Main Varieties of Causes of Poverty

First of all, two main categories of causes of poverty should be distinguished here, each of which has its own distinctive features.

External factors

As a rule, this category includes such reasons that a person himself cannot influence. This may include the following:

• the policy of your country of residence;
• price levels for various products and goods;
• availability and number of jobs;
• wages, pensions, various social benefits;
• the cost of utilities, essential things, etc.

Internal factors

Of course, you can analyze external factors as much as you like, but it will be extremely difficult to influence them significantly. It would be much more reasonable to focus on internal factors that are in the zone of responsibility of the citizens themselves.

If we summarize all the factors under our control, then main reason poverty lies in a very low level of financial literacy, that is, the inability and ignorance of how to competently manage their income to build a secure future. At the same time, the focus on other life principles, combined with not too favorable external factors, just leads to a rather low standard of living.

All this can be summed up in the following terms.

Many people earn little, but at the same time try to spend as much as possible, often getting into debts that they are not able to pay on time.

At the same time, in more prosperous countries, things are somewhat different - people earn more, but try to spend as little as possible.

Commitment to active ways of earning income

Financially literate people are well aware of the need to acquire assets, create and invest in general throughout life. For example, in Western countries insurance, pension, savings, as well as many that local citizens have long been accustomed to and are well versed in, are actively working, constantly investing their money.

At the same time, such organizations began to appear in the CIS countries only recently. Moreover, many people treat them with great skepticism and distrust, preferring to rely on the well-known state pension system.

Biased attitude towards financial structures

Many people traditionally consider banks and other financial institutions to be evil, to be resorted to only when absolutely necessary, which also contributes to the low standard of living of the population. But in more developed countries, banking structures are practically the first financial adviser to every family, not to mention the fact that Foreign citizens try to use all banking opportunities to the maximum and for their own benefit.

Fear of investing

Unfortunately, the majority of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space not only experience distrust of everything related to investing money, but even panic fear. This is usually justified by the fear of getting caught by scammers or another financial pyramid scheme.

In fact, the reason lies again in financial illiteracy and unwillingness to study the topic of personal finance. So, in the West, many families have their own investment portfolio of several assets. Most often, these are company shares, savings funds, real estate, etc. And in the United States, many teenagers learn to trade on various international exchanges from the age of 14–16, to generate passive income from their investments, currency speculation and securities transactions.

The desire to increase income in only one way

Since many citizens of the CIS know little about building sources of passive income, they see only one option to increase their income - to work more. Of course, it helps, and the more you spend your time and energy, the more your earnings increase. However, in developed countries, citizens think differently. There, people also work hard and responsibly, but at the same time they make the main focus of their efforts not only on active, but also on passive income.

Thus, it turns out that by mature years a person is already financially independent and well-endowed with funds. In domestic realities, situations are much more common when a person, towards old age, disappears all day long at work in order to earn enough, hoping in the future for an increased pension from the state.

Wrong attitude towards savings

If one of our fellow citizens tries to form accumulative capital, and there are no more than 34% of the total population, then most often it is kept at home. And usually not in foreign currency or in precious metals, but in public money. Only a few people trust their savings to banks. At the same time, only a very few, even at the amateur level, are investing in other more profitable assets. Naturally, such an attitude towards money does not contribute to its increase, and the low standard of living of the population does not increase.

hasty spending

Unfortunately, very often many of our compatriots spend most of it on the first day of their salary. In contrast, in more developed countries, citizens primarily save a part of what they earn, which, taking into account their expenses, incomes and a competent attitude to money, is not so difficult to do. It is also worth mentioning here that planning, thoughtful savings, as well as accounting for expenses itself, should become a mandatory habit for every family, otherwise it will be extremely difficult to achieve financial independence.

conclusions

As a conclusion, it is worth noting that all these circumstances, along with many external factors, just form a rather low standard of living for the population of the CIS countries. As you can see, in many respects all this depends on the citizens themselves, and not only on the government of the state. It is unlikely that in the near future it is worth counting on the fact that in domestic schools and universities they will pay due attention to the financial literacy of citizens, so you should take matters into your own hands and start self-education - especially in the financial sphere, because with the end of the institute, lifelong learning is by no means ends. Good luck!

For many centuries, the rulers were convinced that the wealth of the country and, accordingly, the well-being of its people is associated with the seizure of territories and the wealth of other peoples in the process of wars, with the presence of significant natural resources (timber, oil, gas). However, the modern history of the economic development of countries proves that these factors are not decisive. For example, Japan is considered today a rich country, although historically it has limited resources. The level of economic development allows the country to use these insignificant resources much more productively. It is the efficient use of production resources (remember what are the factors of production) that is considered today as a valid criterion for the level of economic development of countries. But since the efficiency of the economy is difficult to calculate, to compare the levels of development of countries, economists most often use such an indicator as gross domestic product(GDP) per capita (the total value of all final goods and services produced by a country in a year, divided by the population). This measure of economic activity acts as an indicator of the level of well-being or standard of living.

The standard of living in a broad sense includes many indicators: the level of people's health, the state of the environment, the degree of uneven distribution of income in society, the availability of culture, the cost of living, etc. (Suggest the most important indicators of the level of socio-economic development for Russia that could be used for comparison with other countries.)

United Nations (UN) experts believe that the standard of living is characterized by a special indicator - the human development index, calculated on the basis of the following values: GDP per capita, average life expectancy and level of education.

The level of welfare of the state to a large extent depends on the perfection of economic mechanisms, that is, the methods and forms of combining the efforts of people in solving life support problems. Such economic mechanisms include the division of labor, specialization, and trade already familiar to you from history and social studies courses. They create conditions for the achievement of high labor productivity by the employee and allow producers to exchange the results of labor on a mutually beneficial basis. The significance of the operation of economic mechanisms for ensuring the level of human well-being can be understood if we compare the standard of living of a society based on a subsistence economy (tribes of Africa, Latin America) and commodity economy ( the developed countries West). (Recall the advantages of the latter form of organizing economic life.)

The reason for the low efficiency of the economy may be the use of outdated technologies, low skill levels of personnel, wasteful use of natural resources and others. A low level of economic development leads to a decrease in consumption: in order to consume more, you need to produce more. Thus, the level of economic development directly affects the standard of living in the country. The minimum level of consumption determines such an indicator as the poverty line (level, poverty threshold). The level of poverty is called the normatively established level of a person's monetary income for a certain period, which makes it possible to ensure his physical (physiological) subsistence minimum. Perceptions of poverty in different countries different. As a general rule, the richer the country as a whole, the higher its national poverty line. Thus, at present the World Bank has set the following poverty lines: for developing countries - 1 US dollar per person per day; For of Eastern Europe and CIS - $4; for industrialized countries with market economies - $14.4

The conditions and methods of Russia's transition to a market economy have turned poverty into a serious problem for our country as well.

The main condition for its solution is economic growth.

The standard of living of the population economy

The standard of living of the population depends on its economic potential. An important part of it is national wealth, which represents the totality of material resources, the accumulated products of past labor and the natural resources that society has taken into account and involved in the economic turnover. Continuous replenishment of national wealth (its simple and expanded reproduction) is carried out at the expense of the product produced (GDP, GNI, etc.).

Wealth indicators characterize the material conditions of social production and the life of society as a whole, and the volume of the social product acts as a result of the production process over a certain period of time, as well as a source of compensation for the consumed elements of wealth and its increase. The volume of accumulated wealth and social product reflect the economic potential of the country, and hence the economic opportunities for growth in consumption, income and living standards. An integral part of the national wealth is national property, which expresses the totality of the material conditions of the material well-being of society. It is the result of the work of previous generations. Its size and composition imply, other things being equal, great opportunities for GDP growth and improvement of the population's well-being.

GDP per capita is used in calculating the HDI and social development indices of a country, to a large extent determining its place in international comparisons of the level of social development. Among economic factors, the growth of national income plays a special role. Its value is the result of the work of the current generation, and it is it that is the source of consumption growth, and, consequently, the standard of living of the population.

national income- this is the part of the total social product, remaining minus the means of labor and material costs consumed in the production process and represents newly created value, i.e., what added the production of a given year to the welfare of society. This is the net “earned income” of society. This is what determines the importance of national income.

consumption fund- this is a part of the national income that ensures the satisfaction of the material and spiritual needs of people and the needs of society as a whole (for the non-productive sphere, defense). The size of this fund determines the possibilities of meeting the needs. The accumulation fund is a part of the national income that ensures the development of scientific and technical progress, production.

The ratio between these funds is usually in favor of the consumption fund, but there are reasonable limits (for example, an increase in the share of the consumption fund in the national income over the years of market transformations has led to a lack of investment, which will affect the development of scientific and technical progress, production and society in the future).

The growth of national income and GDP allows the state to raise the minimum wage and pensions, the amount of social benefits, implement various social programs, etc. The size and dynamics of national income depend on many factors: labor productivity, employment, sectoral structure, availability of investments, level of development social sphere and other factors.

Level and dynamics labor productivity are the most important factor in the growth of GDP and national income, which means that the standard of living of the population will increase (decrease) depending on the dynamics of labor productivity. In turn, labor productivity depends on the development of scientific and technical progress; improving the organization of labor, production and management; socio-economic factors.

Development of the social sphere(science, education, healthcare, culture) determines the satisfaction of the social (spiritual, cultural) needs of the population, contributes to the development of the nation's intellect and preserves and strengthens the health of the nation, affects economic development society, etc. The source of increasing the wealth of civilized countries is the use of the results of the creativity of previous generations through training, enlightenment, the assimilation of scientific knowledge, moral norms. The results of creative activity also ensure the growth of national income due to best use labor, material and natural resources, which creates opportunities for reducing working hours, improving working conditions.

Scientific and technical progress(STP) makes changes in the characteristics of products and services, technology, organization of production, labor and management, education, training, etc. This makes it possible to increase the volume of production at constant or decreasing labor and resource costs, and contributes to the growth of labor productivity. The contribution of scientific and technological progress to the development of the economy is determined by the fact that it embodies new scientific and technical ideas in products and services. New information in the form of discoveries and inventions characterizes the potential for economic growth. Its use depends on social order and labor motivation in enterprises.

In PRS, the scientific and technological revolution in the second half of the 20th century led to qualitative changes in production, in the structure of the population, and in the way of life of people. The costs of science and education are growing faster than those of production equipment. The number of scientific workers has sharply increased. Recently, the environmental orientation of scientific and technological progress has become increasingly important - the preservation of the natural environment, the gene pool of the nation. In the PRS, this is manifested in the conditions and content of work. Saving natural resources does not mean a decrease in the level of well-being, because the rationalization of consumption has a beneficial effect on the human body, its performance, life expectancy.

Considering the effect of individual factors in Russia during the years of transition to a market economy, it can be noted that in our country there is neither a political basis (an unsuccessful concept of the development of society), nor an economic basis for raising the standard of living (a decrease in national property, a decrease in GDP, national income, industry , labor productivity doubled). The development of the social sphere has been hampered (insufficient funding, remuneration according to the “residual principle”, commercialization of some social services). There is no development of scientific and technical progress (there is no ideology of its development, investments).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Standard of living(well-being) - the degree to which the material and spiritual needs of people are satisfied by the mass of goods and services used per unit of time Report No. 3 of the United Nations Institute for Social Development Research (UNRISD) (Geneva, 1996, p. 8).

The standard of living is based on the volume of real per capita income and the corresponding volume of consumption.

A number of authors believe that the concept of the level of well-being is not identical with the concept of the standard of living. The standard of living is a broader concept and is characterized not only by the volume of real income per capita, but also by the degree to which people are provided with material and spiritual benefits. .

Often also considered:

• Average GDP per capita, Olivier Blanchard, Gerhard Illing: Makrookonomie. Pearson Education 2009, ISBN 3-8273-7363-8, S. 313ff

Rarely seen:

• The Human Development Index (HDI) is a much broader concept than gross national income, it takes into account, in addition to economic indicators, life expectancy, literacy and education levels.
• Big Mac Index : Big Mac prices in various countries.
• Decile coefficient- the ratio of the richest 10% to the poorest 10% of the population.

Population income

personal income ( cash) are used to pay expenses. Income depends on what factors of production a person owns. If these are labor resources, then he receives wages for his labor, if capital, then for his investment the owner of the capital receives part of the profit (dividends, interest), if natural resources (for example, land), then the owner's income is rent. Income provides current consumption and is also set aside as savings. At the same time, the analysis of the structure of expenditures serves as a source of extremely important data for assessing the state of affairs in the economy of any country.

Need for nutrition. Engel's law

Different goods of life have unequal value, as a result of which the needs of people are significantly differentiated in their scope. Humanity is the fastest to meet its food needs, and as a result, when incomes rise, the share of food costs begins to decline first. Then comes the turn of spending on clothes and shoes, although here the process of "saturation" is slower due to the constantly changing fashion.

Several facts can serve as a critique of Engel's law. First, the relatively declining amount of food expenditure by a person or household does not take into account the significant indeterminacy of human behavior, a much wider range of food products and related goods and services than in the 19th century, and the emergence of a fairly large range of interchangeable products that are in different price categories. (genetically modified and selective agricultural products, soy processed products and natural meat products, etc.) Secondly, the relatively unchanged amount of expenses for clothing, housing and utilities with income growth does not take into account a person’s need for a certain social status and / or its external attributes, which include clothing and housing of a certain level of prestige, and with increasing income, the consumer in most cases has a need to purchase more prestigious models of clothing and / or more comfortable housing.

Summarizing the criticism of the formulation of Engel's law, we can say that Engel's law does not take into account the consequences of technological progress, individual effects of the consumer society, modern technologies for managing public opinion (advertising, marketing, etc.)

Need for housing

It is much more difficult to meet housing demands. The lower the cost of food and clothing in a country, the higher the share of housing costs, which is explained by higher quality housing and a high degree of security for them. Housing is a “prestigious commodity”, so people tend to buy comfortable houses and apartments not only for the sake of convenience, but also for their social position. However, there is another position. From this position, the need for housing is one of the basic human needs, since the main purpose of housing, first of all, is protection from adverse environmental factors of a natural, social and man-made nature. Substitute products that fully or sufficiently duplicate its consumer properties and utility do not exist. From the low value of the average cost of the population of the country for food and clothing, it obviously follows only that, other things being equal, the country is geographically located in areas with a favorable climate for people to live, which are also characterized by a relatively low cost of housing, associated with a low level of costs for its construction and maintenance. Engel argued (and today it is generally accepted) that if personal consumption in all countries develops according to a similar pattern, then the analysis of the structure of family expenditures makes it possible to compare the level of well-being of various groups of the population as in one country taken separately (taking as a criterion the share of family expenditures on food ), as well as in different states.

wealth inequality

When studying the question of the standard of living, the main problem is the problem of inequality of well-being, as well as the social tension generated by it in society. The gap in living standards between Moscow and the provinces persists The gap in living standards depends on the different values ​​of the factors of production owned by people and the efficiency of their use. A worker in a firm that produces a scarce and high-quality product may earn higher wages than a similarly skilled colleague in a firm whose goods are hard to sell. Income also depends on the volume of factors of production. Obviously, the owner of two oil wells receives, other things being equal, more income than the owner of one well.

Income inequality can reach enormous proportions and pose a threat to political and economic stability in the country, therefore, almost all developed countries of the world are forced to constantly reduce the income gap between different groups of the population. But the development of such measures is possible only with the ability to accurately determine the degree of differentiation of income and wealth and influence it with the help of public policy.