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Related poverty among Romanian children: a descriptive analysis in the European context

Abstract
The present research intends to present a theoretical point of view concerning the degrees of
related poverty among Romanian children, considering the European context of the
phenomenon and also the poverty’s impact on children. In addition, this research analyses the
main forms of poverty, insisting on related poverty of Romanian children in comparison with
other European countries as well as the moral, political, social and economical necessities
triggered by this analysis.
Beyond doubt, the existence and persistence of poverty, is one of the most important
contemporary issues. Especially, children’s poverty is a crucial concern of social policies at
both national and international level. (Wintersberger şi Sgritta 1994 claim that the states
promote a distorted distribution of ressources among generations as economic policies favour
the older generations.
These comments of the authors above reveal a high awareness of the fact that “childhood is a
variable, a dependent variable even”. (Qvortrup, 2000: 79)1Maybe the main reason we are so
concerned with children’s poverty dues to the fact that we see children as a social investment,
meaning we see them as future adults.(Harper, Marcus și Moore, 2003; Lundberg, 1993 apud
McDonald,C.,1999 ). Generally speaking, researches indicate that childhood poverty is
directly linked to major problems in adult life, problems which have a great impact on
manpower’s capacity to integrate, on health and also on the general welfare of children and
their families. Also we must not overlook the importance of collective costs of such
phenomena as delinquency, privation of the opportunity of growing up with the biological
family, privation of a home, high risk of morbidity when reaching adult life as a consequence
of childhood poverty. ( McDonald,C. 1999)2 Last,but not least children’s poverty is associated
with social isolation, domestic violence and with all sorts of abuse in general.
Privation of the right to a coherent education and of forming social support networks to
confute stress factors, are also results of poverty. Furthermore, poverty is also reflected in
malnutrition which affects cerebral development, learning capacities and induces behaviour
problems that may affect their whole personality. (Galler, Ramsay, Solimano, &Lowell, 1983;
Mustard, 1999; Tanner & Finn-Stevenson, apud Leschied,A.W., 1996).3
Avison 1998(apud Leschied ,A.W. 2006) suggests that poverty materialises by privation of
social support, low self esteem and maternal stress, leading to children’s both inner and outer
vulnerability. In a detailed research, Willms (2000) observed that children’s poverty is
associated with behaviour problems(age 4 to 12 years, approximately),with an
underdeveloped vocabulary for preschool children and generally with low intellective
performances.
Being such a wide-spread phenomenon, the United States have made 2010 the European Year
of Fighting against Poverty and Social Exclusion. In most European countries, children are
submitted to a higher risk of poverty than the rest of the population. In many European
countries,1 in 4 children is submitted to the risk of poverty. It is a generally accepted fact that
these children, who were brought up in poverty, have fewer chances of enjoying a good
health, satisfying academic results and finding a job. In 2005 there were 97,5 million children,

1
Qvortrup, J. (2000). Macroanalysis of Childhood. in Research with Children, Christensen, P. and James, A.
(Eds), Falmer Press: London.
2
McDonald,C.(1999). Children and Poverty Why their experience of their lives matter for policy. Australian
Journal of Social Issues Vol.44 (1).
3
Leschied ,A.W., Chiodo,D., Whitehead ,P.C.,and Dermot H.(2006).The association of poverty with child
welfare service and child and family clinical outcomes. Community, Work and Family Vol. 9,(1) , pp. 29 -46.
aged 0-17 years in the United States(approximately 20% of the population), that is 10 millions
less than 1995 and their number is still dropping as a result of demographic aging.
The lowest level of related poverty among children can be seen in the Northern states,
Denmark and Finland(both with a 10% rate of related poverty among children). However, in
almost a half of the European countries the risk of childhood poverty goes beyond 20%,
reaching 25% in Romania, 27% in Leton and 29% in Poland. Only in a few countries,
childhood poverty is equal or lower than the rates of general poverty: Belgia, Denmark,
Germany, Cyprus, Slovenia and Finland.
Life standards of “poor children” vary significantly all over Europe. For 11 of the 15 “old
members”, the monthly income required for a household consisting of two adults and two
children to be considered at the limit of poverty, varies from 1500 euro to 2400 euro while the
same income is no more than 500 euro for 9 of the 12 “new-members”. Having made the
necessaries adjustments for differences between costs of life, the variation remains
impressive: for Luxemburg the average income is of 3000 euro, which is more than 10 time
the income of 250 euro in Romania, the country with the lowest average income. Poverty
diminishes one’s chances to live within the minimum standards of life level. These standards
are of course relative, depending on the country and region. The OMS defines poverty as the
result of the ratio between the global average income for inhabitant and the average income
for inhabitant in a particular country. For example, the lowest limit of poverty was fixed in
Germany, in 2003 at a monthly income of 983 euro. Other marks for establishing poverty
limits are: insufficient income to provide regular nourishment, a minimum of clothing,
warming and other compulsory necessities.
Poverty triggers cultural deficiencies, lack of qualified manpower and increased rates of
illiteracy. Poverty can be absolute or related. Robert McNamara, an American politician,
defines absolute poverty as an extreme condition of human existence in which the individual,
in its struggle to survive, is exposed to all kinds of deprivations and humiliations that may
shock the imagination of the privileged. All over the world, almost a billion people(850
millions) suffer from hunger or malnutrition out of which 170 millions are children. Every 5
seconds, a child under 5 dies and annually approximately 30 million people die of
malnutrition. As mentioned above, the concept of poverty can be conceived as absolute(“a
minimum of physical survival”),proposed by Rowntree in 1901 to considering wider ranges
of basic necessities or related, by referring the entire population of a country or a geographic
area; finally it can refer both to strictly material factors and non-material factors(need of
education, security, rest, relaxation and culture etc). EU statistics concerning incomes and life
conditions provide useful information in order to perform a comparative analysis of poverty
among children at a European level. The two Laeken markers concerning childhood poverty
are: rate of related poverty: percentage of children living in households with incomes under
60% of the national average and percentage of children whose parents do not have a job. In
most European countries the rate of related poverty among children is higher than the general
rate of poverty(except for Denmark, Germany, Cyprus and Finland in 2006). In many
countries, including the Czech Republic, Italy, Leton, Luxemburg, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia
and Sweden, the rate of related poverty among children is higher than the rate of related
poverty among pensioners. Approximately 16% of the UE population-79 million people-
confront the risk of poverty, and for children and elderly persons this percentage is even
higher. Poverty has both lots of causes and also effects: inadequate houses, insufficient
capacities, no access to medical assistance and other vital services, incapacity to access work-
markets-all these factors, especially when combined can stop a person from fully participating
to social life.
Social inclusion intends to guarantee to each and every person, including those who came
from vulnerable backgrounds, the right to play a full part on the working force market and in
society as well, benefiting of equal opportunities. Promoting social inclusion is also crucial
for EU in terms of reaching its goals of stable economic growth, more and better jobs and a
stronger social cohesion.
Policies designed to fight poverty are national policies: both poverty’s measurement and the
necessary instruments to fight it are specially adapted to the standards of the country in
question. Currently, in Romania there are 2 indicators for measuring monetary poverty:
related poverty and absolute poverty. The indicator for related poverty derives from a
methodology which has been adopted by the European Council of Laeken, in December 2001.
This methodology was designed to enable the monitoring in a comparative manner of the
members’ progress concerning the goals of the EU in the battle against poverty and social
exclusion. The indicator of absolute poverty is based on a national methodology, which was
created in 2002 by a team of experts from the National Institute of Statistics, government
experts, researchers and experts of the World Bank and it is a national indicator included in
the Monitoring System for poverty and social integration in Romania. In 2005, by releasing
HG nr. 488 on 26 may concerning the approval of the national system of social inclusion
indicators, the figures for poverty degrees have become official.
Fighting childhood poverty and cutting off the transfer of disadvantages from one generation
to another(“inherited poverty”) have been issues of major concern from the very beginning of
the process of social inclusion. This issue is more and more emphasized as a priority for the
EU members. The Rom population of Europe faces a series of problems that make it
extremely vulnerable to the phenomena of social exclusion and poverty. Consequently, the
states with a large Rom minority have approached the issue with more commitment, and
generally these states have a better understanding of the challenges implied. The problems
that must be hurdled refer especially to integration, access to jobs, approaching educational
disadvantages and improving access to basic services like houses and medical assistance.
Data provided by the National Institute of Statistics reveal that currently, 4 million Romanians
live on the edge of poverty. The President of the National Institute of Statistics, Vergil
Voineagu stated that 4 million Romanians belong to families whose monthly income is under
1.480 lei. This means that 1 in 5 families have incomes below the limit of related poverty. For
2008 the related poverty limit was 459,33 lei, meaning that a person whose income goes
under this figure, is considered to be poor. The absolute poverty rate is the total weight of
every person in the household whose consumption per adult is under the poverty limit for the
entire population. In order to calculate the limit of absolute poverty, a series of factors are
taken into account: the cost of a minimum nutriment basket, a minimum consumption of non-
alimentary goods and services, equal to the expenses of persons whose alimentary
consumption is the same with the cost of the alimentary basket. The cost of the nutriment
basket was estimated in order to ensure the 2.550 necessary calories per day depending on the
consumption of the population, which had been distributed according to the criteria of
consumption expenses(first “decil” is the poorest). In 2008, the absolute poverty limit was of
254,5 lei per person. The highest value of absolute poverty rate is being registered among
young people, aged 15 to 24 years and that is of 8,4%. According to appraisals of the
National Institute of Statistics, the related poverty limit in 2009 was of about 1.500 per
household, to be more precise 1.486 lei. Official statistics show that in Romania 2 thirds of
the households have to manage with incomes under the national average. In poor families, the
hire provides only 7% of the income, the rest of the budget being completed by social services
and agricultural income.
In 2006, related poverty in the rural environment reaches the value of 29,6% in comparison
with the 9,6% of the urban environment. More than 70% of Romania’s poor population lives
in the countryside. Analyzing the households situation,4 categories with a higher rate of
related poverty can be distinguished, and those are: single persons(26,8%), 19,8% men and
30,1% women, families with only 1 parent(27,1%), families with at least 3 children(45,4%)
and single persons over 65(32,8%). On the other hand, children(0 to 14 years) and young
people(15 to 24 years) are submitted to the highest risk of poverty. Related poverty rate
among children, aged 0 to 15 years was of 25,9% in 2008 in comparison with the related
poverty rate of 16,2% among people aged 65 or over 65 years. Approximately 75% of poor
children live in the countryside, where the risk of poverty is 3 times bigger than in the city.
More than a third of these children come from agriculturalist families, and their poverty level
is 7 times bigger than the one of children living in families with at least an employed adult.
Over the last years, education has proved to be one of the factors most tightly connected to the
level of welfare.
Mediafax reveals that the economic crisis made the figures go up to 350.000 poor children
and tripled the rate of school abandon, according to representatives of World Vision Romania.
Thus, approximately 40.000 children, most of them coming from the countryside have
dropped school, year after year. The organization pointed out that access to education
continues to be a problem in Romania and that the economic crisis has stopped a lot of parents
from sending their children to school. Poverty risk is inversely proportional with the boost of
the education level, even approaching the 0 value for graduating adults. Another important
aspect of poverty in Romania is connected to the ethnical dimension. Even if the related
poverty rate among Roms has dropped from 76% in 2003 to 48% in 2007, the risk of poverty
was 4 times bigger for the rom population than for the majority in 2007. The Rom population
is seriously affected by unemployment rates above average, inadequate housing conditions
and a high rate of illiteracy. Also depending on the region of development, the related poverty
rate was in 2008 of 4,7% for Bucuresti and Ilfov in comparison with the N-E side where its
value reached 27,2% in the same year. Currently, in most parts of Romania, poverty is only
temporary(Teşliuc, Pop, Teşliuc, 20014). This can be explained by the fact that poverty is not
thorough, many people finding themselves placed near the poverty limit as their incomes were
seriously shaken by the current negative economical climate. Between 2004-2005, about a
half of the teenagers, aged 15 to 18 years and coming from poor families, were registered in
school. Furthermore, only 37% of the young and poor people(aged 15 to 24 years), were
attending classes in 2006, while others were having a rough time on the work-market, as
illegal workers(30%) or unemployed(15%). Approximately 70% of the poor adults(aged 15 or
older) have only graduated 8 classes or less.
Conclusions:
The related poverty indicator is based on a methodology, which had been adopted by the
European Council of Laeken in December 2001. EU states a related definition of poverty:
”percentage of people whose available income is under 60% of the national average income”.
This methodology was designed to enable the monitoring in a comparative manner of the
members’ progress concerning the goals of the EU in the battle against poverty and social
exclusion. Romania is one of the few countries to have an officially adopted poverty
measuring methodology. Noticeable from the very beginning, the poverty incidence appraised
using related limits, even if included as a primary indicator of social exclusion and used in
international comparisons all over the EU, does not succeed to reflect the dynamic evolution
of the phenomenon. Still, if these comparisons are made between countries having similar
levels of development, they may provide a wider picture of those countries with a higher risk
of poverty, usually triggered by less efficient social protection programs.

4
Tesliuc, C.M., Pop, L., Tesliuc,D.E.(2001). Sărăcia şi sistemul de protecţie socială, Iași: Editura Polirom.

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