Statistical Measurement of Poverty and Inequality in the CIS Countries

Abstract

This article deals with methodological, organizational and practical issues of measuring poverty and inequality in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the context of international statistical recommendations, in particular, the Agenda for Sustainable Development. The paper provides basic conceptual approaches to measuring monetary and non-monetary poverty, as reflected in the national practices of statistical offices of the CIS countries.The authors determine the role of income and expenditure indicators in measuring poverty and inequality in the CIS region. They also identify the main challenges and issues of income and expenditure statistics arising from differences in data sources, applied classifications and aggregation methods. The paper includes some recommendations on the unification of methods for collecting income and expenditure statistics, developed as part of the joint UNECE, Rosstat and CIS-Stat project on harmonization of poverty indicators for monitoring sustainable development in CIS Countries.The article addresses national practical applications of poverty measuring concepts concerning absolute, relative and subjective poverty.Another important matter that this paper discusses is the comparability of poverty statistics to review progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the CIS region. It is associated with the use of different poverty lines and welfare indicators, that serve as a basis for constructing population distribution series. The authors provide a method for calculating poverty indicators using the international and national poverty lines.The article formulates ways to further improve poverty statistics that are aimed at developing integral indicators and criteria to measure poverty not only on the basis of income and expenditure, but also taking into account factors affecting the population’s quality of life (primarily, the possibility of obtaining health care services, education, access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitary conditions), environmental situation, life safety.