Poverty Is No Crime: Measuring Poverty in Russian Regions

Fighting poverty is on the top of Russia’s political agenda. The scope of poverty as well as the poverty profile is still an open question, however. The question is even more open with respect to the Russian regions. One could expect that being a heterogeneous country, Russia’s regional poverty profiles are also heterogeneous. We measure poverty in Russia’s regions using absolute poverty notion, official regional subsistence levels and consumption-based approach. We also draw regional poverty profiles by identifying the factors which influence poverty rates and poverty gaps. The exercise is based on NOBUS database – a nationally and regionally (for 46 regions) representative survey of 45000 households done in April-May 2003. We find that poverty rates vary significantly – up to threefold difference - across regions. The list of factors that influence poverty rate and poverty gap in regions are similar, with variation in relative weights of the factors. The former conforms with other studies on poverty in Russia that conclude that there are no major differences in determinants of transitory or persistent poverty. Some interesting insights in regional-specific patterns of poverty are found.