#1
Novoe Vremya
No. 43
October 2001
OUR DAILY BREAD
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
These days, everyone earns their daily bread any way they can. Surveys show that 55% of Russian citizens have more or less steady or regular employment; 20% are pensioners who do not work; 6% are pensioners who have permanent or temporary jobs. Another 4% of the adult population are students; 3% are women who describe themselves as housewives; 1.5% are women caring for young children. Finally, 10% describe themselves as unemployed; 2% are registered as unemployed, while 7% are seeking work but not registered as unemployed.
There seems to have formed a class of "new poor" - the people who spare on the food not to mention the fact that purchasing manufactured goods are out of the question, but who have apartments and housing property, which cannot be sold now owing to their decrepitude. A new Russian poor is, for instance, an undernourished pensioner, who watches a beautiful life in Mexico on a color TV.
Some 95% of families have refrigerators, 90% of families own a color TV; 83% of families have washing machines, and 72% possess vacuum cleaners. Some 22% of them have kitchen units, and 8% of families have a separate freezer. At the same time the fridge is empty, the kitchen unit is covered with rust, and the car is a Zaporozhets without wheels. Despite owning some property, the majority of the population lives in poverty. As defined by them, 5% say that they "live in poverty and are undernourished" and 27% "deprive themselves of almost everything since they use all their money to buy food." As approximately 35% say, "they barely make both ends meet." They can be placed among the group of "relative impoverishment." Finally, some 30% can be called prosperous people, according to the Russian standards: 27% say that they "live decently, even though we have to work with our last strength," and 3% can be related to really rich - they say they are "in easy circumstances, denying themselves nothing."
Despite the fact that a decade has passed since the start of the radical reforms, the majority of people, as 58% of the population think, cannot adapt themselves to life under market conditions, and a smaller part - 34% - assume that "the majority adapts themselves." People's attitude toward jobs proves that the mentality pattern of many people has not yet changed since the Soviet times: 66% say they would like to have "even if small, but stable wage and confidence in the future"; 4% would like to have "even if small wage, but more free time and easier jobs." People who prefer "work much and be well-paid, even without any guarantees for the future" make 22% and they are at the anti-pole. Other 8% would love to "have their own business and manage it at their own risk. As is clear, approximately one-third of the people have got accustomed to the capitalism and other two-thirds either cannot or do not want to do that.
At the same time, despite the current difficulties the number of people, who would love the Soviet times to return has been permanently decreasing - now there are 45% of them, whereas some 5 years ago they made 55% of the population.
October 29, 2001:
#5513
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