What explains the differences in material deprivation between rural and urban areas in Poland before and during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract

We examined the relationships between the compositional changes in demographic and socioeconomic factors and the changes in the prevalence of material deprivation in rural and urban areas in Poland. Using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data for 2019–2020, we applied the Fairlie decomposition approach for a logit model. We found that the important characteristics affecting a gap in material deprivation between rural and urban areas are: equivalized income, the level of education, the type of household, and the presence of disabled or unemployed people in the household. A non-significant effect of the pandemic on the material deprivation gap between rural and urban areas was observed.