What People Consider Poverty Varies Widely across Russia’s Regions and Plays a Bigger Role than Many Acknowledge, Doboyko Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 27 – The gap between average incomes in Moscow and those in poorer cities hides “a more complex reality,” Dmitry Doboyko says, pointing out that “a ‘poor’ Muscovite with an income of 70,000 rubles a month may feel significantly less prosperous than a resident of Dzerzinsk who has one of 50,000.”
    And that has some powerful consequences, the Samara political scientist who specializes on regional issues says. “People assess their situation not on the basis of abstract numbers but according to the possibilities of supporting a definite lifestyle characteristic of their immediate environment” (t.me/loboykoru/56 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/bednaya-rossiya-geografiya).i-ekonomika-chernyh-dyr).
    Those regions such as the North Caucasus are thus “not simply points on the map but whole social worlds with their own ideas about poverty and well-being” that set them apart from better off urban centers like Moscow; but they are nonetheless profoundly affected in assessing what is right by central media that presents what Muscovites have as the norm.
    According to Doboyko, “current economic growth is like a rising tide which lifts all boats; but some are riding a powerful wave while others are just gently rocking on the surface.” And that means that “the subjective perception of poverty becomes no less important as a factor in social tension than are objective indicators of income.”
    “As a result,” he says, “we are witnessing not just economic stratification but the formation of parallel social realities where the same income figures can mean completely different standards of living and assessments of social well-being,” a reality that is all too often ignored.
    And from that, Doboyko draws two important conclusions. On the one hand, these figures make it clear that “the main cause of poverty today is not individual circumstance but systemic inequality in development.” And on the other, this often becomes “a vicious circle with rich regions becoming ever richer while poor ones plunge into a funnel of relative deprivation.”