ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, we examined how the situation with poverty in Russia has changed over the course of time, using examples drawn from people’s real lives, and looked briefly at the reasons for a reduction in the living standards of a particular section of the population over the last two decades. However, there remains one major question: why some households get ‘stuck’ in poverty and their deprivation becomes more profound, while others, in contrast, cope with their difficulties and get out of poverty. It must be said that, in recent years, quite a lot of specialised research has been devoted to tackling this issue. In particular, we would like to refer to the results of two pieces of research that looked especially at the factors involved in entry to persistent poverty. The authors of these have concluded that prolonged poverty is strongly correlated with family size, with the presence of children and pensioners in the family, with certain characteristics of the head of the family, with place of residence and also whether any family members are unemployed (Spryskov, 2000; Poduzov and Кukushkin, 2002). In this regard, we would like to draw attention to one factor which our respondents constantly mentioned, but which for some reason is never reflected in the Russian sociological literature on causes of poverty: the influence of a person’s state of health on their entry into persistent poverty. Moreover, the link between poverty and health has long been established – and repeatedly confirmed – through research conducted in various countries (Oppenheim and Harker, 1996; Bartley, 2004). Thus, for example, it has been noted that when people move into a lower social class they have fewer opportunities to use medical care than if they still had a higher standard of living. In addition, income inequality and insecurity in life cause persistent psychosocial stress, which over time leads to destruction of health and to high mortality (Wilkinson, 1997).
