Abstract
The aim of this article is to assess the level of relative material deprivation in the Czech and Slovak Republics and their regions. The first part of the article describes the level of households? equipment with utilities and durables using the 1991 and 2001 censuses. The second part is aimed at estimating the relative material deprivation in the Czech and Slovak regions using EU SILC 2006-2008 microdata, i.e. approximately 15 years after the split. The results indicate that there are significant differences in the relative material deprivation rates between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and among their regions. According to the results, the level of deprivation is higher in Slovakia, and deprived households are highly concentrated in the eastern part of Slovakia. The regions can be divided into five clusters, while the Czech Capital Prague Region has a special position. It has the highest level of housing deprivation and the lowest level of durables/economic strain deprivation.
Highlights
A Note on the Economic History of the Czech and Slovak RepublicsBefore 1993 Slovakia and the Czech Republic were parts of the common Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak Federal Republic between 1989 and 1992)
The aim of this paper is to propose a simple measure of relative material deprivation based on the Human Poverty Index (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 1997), which should serve as a proxy for the multidimensional deprivation level and as an alternative indicator of relative material deprivation based on the multidimensional approach
Using the monetary approach the Czech Republic and Slovakia even belong to the countries with the lowest levels of at-risk-ofpoverty rates (8.6% and 11% respectively) (Iveta Stankovicova 2010)
Summary
Before 1993 Slovakia and the Czech Republic were parts of the common Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak Federal Republic between 1989 and 1992). Using the monetary approach (the poverty line defined as 60% of the median equivalized disposable income after social transfers) the Czech Republic and Slovakia even belong to the countries with the lowest levels of at-risk-ofpoverty rates (8.6% and 11% respectively) (Iveta Stankovicova 2010). In the case of the “EU-wide threshold”, which is the common poverty line for all EU countries (Alessio Fusco, Anne-Catherine Guio, and Eric Marlier 2010), the at-risk-of-poverty rate exceeds 45% in the Czech Republic and 85% in Slovakia, which is the highest rate (Bulgaria and Romania are excluded from this analysis) According to this “EU-wide income poverty line” Slovak households are ranked among the poorest in the EU. When comparing the minimum monthly income required by households (i.e. a kind of their own individual subjective poverty line) with their actual income, the minimum required incomes of almost 70% of Slovak and 33% of Czech households exceeded the actual levels of their income (Tomas Zelinsky 2010d)
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