The extent of poverty in the Czech and Slovak Republics 15 years after the split

Even today poverty is a serious problem in both developing and developed countries. Before 1989 Czechoslovakia was a communist state with a centrally planned economy. In November 1989 the Velvet Revolution restored democracy in the country and on 1 January 1993 Czechoslovakia split into two countries: the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic (Slovakia). The poverty phenomenon began to be publicly discussed in the former Czechoslovakia after November 1989. Before 1989 accepting the existence of poverty was contrary to the communist ideological principle of equality, and socio-economic research on it was even prohibited. The term poverty was replaced by ‘restricted consumption capability’. This article briefly describes the history of attempts to measure poverty prior to the split. Further detailed analyses are focused on monetary poverty, relative material deprivation and subjective perception of poverty in the two countries and are based on EU--SILC 2006--08 microdata, i.e. 15 years after the split. Differences among the countries are then discussed.