Poverty in Estonia hasn’t decreased

from Baltic Business News

An update on poverty statistics in Estonia. - Kale

by Gertrud Levit

The at-risk-of-poverty rate of the Estonian population in 2006 was 19.5 pct and the income of the richest fifth and poorest fifth differentiated by nearly six times, announced the Statistics Estonia.

Compared to 2005, the difference between the incomes of the richest fifth (the fifth income quintile) and the poorest fifth (the first income quintile) of the population did not change. Likewise, the at-risk-of-poverty rate remained more or less at the same level in 2006 as it was a year earlier, writes aripaev.ee. In 2006, 259,000 persons were living in the risk-of-poverty.

Increase in salaries and the economic growth as well as the decrease in unemployment continued in 2006, but this did not have a similar effect on the livelihood of all sectors of the population.


By age groups, the risk-of-poverty was the biggest among the persons in retirement age — a third of them lived in poverty. The main reason behind this was a slower increase in the income of the 65-year-olds and older people. At the same time, the poverty of children decreased — during the year, the at-risk-of-poverty rate among the 15-year-olds and younger children fell 2.4 percentage points, i.e. to the level of 17.4 pct.

The risk of children falling into the risk-of-poverty is related to the household type in which they are brought up. Single-parent households had the highest at-risk-of-poverty rate (44.4 pct) and the fastest growth in the at-risk-of-poverty rate during the year. Poverty decreased in the households with two adults and one child and remained at the level of the previous year for the households with two adults and two children.

The positive trends in the Estonian economy were least beneficial for the people who did not work. This way, the at-risk-of-poverty rate grew during the year for both the unemployed and the old-age pensioners.