Countering Discrimination in Social Work

Bogdan Lesnik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351948227
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Diritto del lavoro e dell'impiego

Discrimination? Isn't there enough talk about discrimination? Yes, indeed. That is why we have to begin countering discrimination. We need strategies that will make it inoperative or at least limit its scope. But first, we need to think how discrimination works and identify it where it works. It concerns far more than mere procedural hitches for which a few legal provisions will do. Countering Discrimination (Volume 1998 of International Perspectives in Social Work yearbook) brings papers that analyse mechanisms of social discrimination in a variety of such locations and bring proposals for counter-strategies. This is essential in social work if causes, rather than manifestations, of the problems it is concerned with are to be addressed. But it is also essential that everybody who opposes discrimination recognise its subtle and dispersed ways of operation in the human services, regardless of their own basic field of work. In this respect, the book will be useful to a very wide audience.

1 Poverty and Deprivation

Signe Dobelniece

Abstract

Poverty and deprivation are significant aspects of the social fabric. This chapter explores the nature, extent and consequences of poverty in Latvia in the current period of post-Soviet social reconstruction. This provides an important case study of poverty and deprivation in one specific country but also offers potential insights for understanding issues of economic class and the allocation of financial resources more broadly.

Introduction

Poverty must be recognised as a complex phenomenon with varying causes and even more varying consequences. Common to all of them is the suffering people experience as a result of such poverty. However, this suffering may find expression in different ways. In some ways, it is difficult to speak about poverty and how people experience it in Latvia, as there is no official definition of what poverty is and no accepted criteria or methodology for its measurement within Latvian social policy. Alcock (1993) makes apt comment when he argues that there are:

... obviously quite different conceptions of poverty with quite different consequences for how poverty is identified and what policies might be developed to respond to it. To select one rather than another definition would thus lead to a very different approach to both the problem and the solution of poverty. (p-8)

As a consequence of a lack of a clear definition of poverty, there are no precise data about people living in poverty, and no agreed framework for conceptualising the issues and developing appropriate policy responses. In some sources, up to 80 per cent of the population are mentioned in this context. That is why many of the processes operating in society may be looked upon as caused at least in part by poverty.

Discussion in this chapter revolves around some of the negative effects of poverty on demographic processes, consumption, health and education. Poverty involves both an economic and social aspect. The latter is discussed here in terms of the violation of human rights, human dignity, autonomy, life and happiness.

It will be argued that solutions can and should be sought in the stabilisation and development of micro- and macroeconomic processes, state social policy and in changes in people’s attitudes. The question of attitudes or perceptions is particularly significant for, as Alcock (1993) argues:

We all perceive poverty, like other social phenomena, through an ideological framework; and for each of us that framework and those perceptions of poverty are unique. However, although unique, they are not isolated. Our perceptions and attitudes are governed in large part by broader social influences, in particular the ideologies of powerful social figures and social forces, which receive publicity through the media, through politics, through education and through social interactions. The public images of poverty are central in determining private perceptions, (p. 19)

Poverty in Latvia

Poverty would appear to be a relatively new phenomenon in Latvia. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, if poverty was at all present, it was latent. It was not a topic for discussion, largely due to the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. According to this ideology, there were no social problems to be found in a socialist society. People started to talk about poverty, survival and other such phenomena in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the collapse of the USSR and the consequent processes of transformation. This was a time when a significant part of the population was faced with poverty and experienced its consequences. The deterioration of living standards is not always linked with poverty, but rather with deprivation, as the latter has brought different restrictions and, to be sure, detrimental consequences for people’s lives.

Causes of poverty

The causes of poverty are various and complex. Only some of the more evident ones will be mentioned here. After regaining independence in 1991, Latvia began a transition from a totalitarian regime to democracy and from a command economy to relations regulated by the free market - that is, to totally different political and economic systems. The transition involved important structural changes in all spheres of life, with those in the economic and social protection spheres more noticeable for ordinary people. Economic reforms included many unpopular measures and created unexpectedly harsh results in production, wages, consumption, trade and inflation. The severity of decline in these spheres even surprised International Monetary Fund planners (Dreifelds 1996:114), and caused considerable distress in the population.

Although now recording modest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, within recent years, GDP had decreased to almost half its former level (from 1989 to 1995 by 46 per cent) (Latvija Parskats 1996: 44). Production decreased even more (Oslands 1996: 22). Liberalisation of prices was closely related to hyper-inflation, with its maximum (958 per cent) occurring in 1992. In recent years the rate of inflation has decreased significantly (estimated to be at less than 10 per cent in 1997), but it is not compensated for by an increase in the rate of income. Usually poor living conditions are associated with being out of the labour market. The transition brought about a change in this: labour-related poverty. There are spheres, especially those financed by state budget - education, medicine, culture, social assistance and so on - where wages are relatively low. They are lower than average and frequently also lower than the subsistence or survival minimum. Even if there has been an increase, it does not match the rate of inflation. This results in a significant deterioration of purchasing power for the population and in the general level of economic well-being.

The restructuring of the economy brought along a new phenomenon for Latvia - unemployment - which did not exist officially in the USSR. In 1996 the official unemployment rate was 7.1 per cent (Diena, 2 October 1996), with a trend towards gradual increase. According to survey data provided by the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) of Latvia, it is significantly higher. At the end of 1995 18.9 per cent of the economically active population was looking for work (Zinojums 1996: 9). Special attention must be paid to increasing long-term unemployment (42.6 per cent of all unemployed in 1995), as this indicates the severity of the problem. Unemployment is not evenly distributed throughout the country. There are regions, especially in eastern Latvia, where the unemployment rate is almost three times higher than the average and almost ten times higher than in the capital, Riga. That high level of unemployment can be dangerous, not only for the economic survival of the population, but also for their psychological well-being. It can be closely related to a range of negative phenomena, such as moral degradation, depression, looking for escape in alcohol, suicide, and so on.

Another trend, characteristic of the period of transition, is a rapid change in social structure caused by social differentiation within the population according to their material well-being. And this also was new. People were used to thinking in terms of equality. At the very least an idea about citizens being equal members of a socialist society was created and sustained. Therefore, the distribution of household income that has become more unequal during the transition is even more painful. Researchers speak about a hyper-differentiation that has taken place in most post-communist countries. To characterise this process, a Gini coefficient can be used. It shows how equally or otherwise an income is distributed among the population. In the late 1980s the Gini coefficient was about 0.2-0.3; in 1993 0.40; in 1994 0.42. For comparison, this index is higher in Latvia than in any of the G-7 countries, where it fluctuated between 0.28 and 0.32 (Latvija Pārskats 1996: 25-6), and it shows that income is distributed more and more unequally in Latvia, that the rich get richer and the stratum of those living in poverty is increasing. In 1996 the bottom decile received only 3.3 per cent of all resources while the richest 10 per cent had about 25 per cent at their disposal (Diena, 8 April 1997).

The poverty line

There are no accurate data available about the proportion of the population living in poverty in Latvia. Several reasons can be mentioned to explain this situation, one of which is that there is no agreement as to an official definition specifying what poverty is, or what criteria and methodology should be used for its measurement.

To protect the population in a rapid decline of living conditions, as an equivalent to a poverty line, a subsistence minimum (minimal consumption basket) was introduced in 1991. The government was not able to provide the population with an income equal to the subsistence minimum, therefore a crisis subsistence minimum was introduced in 1992. The crisis minimum is oriented mainly towards providing for basic physical existence. This also was not an adequate solution to the problem, as there was still a significant gap between real income and the costs of a crisis minimum consumption basket. According to household budget survey data, 56 per cent of the population had a lower income than this. The average household income per capita corresponds to 92 per cent of the crisis subsistence minimum; average pension to 71 per cent, and minimal salary to 75 per cent. Unemployment benefit is even less. To reduce the number of people eligible for social assistance, the government in 1993 issued regulations which stated that the people who receive social assistance are mainly those whose income within the last three months has not exceeded 75 per cent of the crisis...