FINAL REPORT TONATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

The Frederic Burk Foundation, Incorporate dSan Francisco State Universit y

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR : Mervyn Matthew s

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER : 627-4 b

DATE: May, 198 5

The work leading to this report was supported by funds provide dby the National Council for Soviet and East European Research .

TITLE :

Poverty and Patterns o fDeprivation

in the Soviet Union

AUTHOR : Mervyn Matthew s

CONTRACTOR :

FINAL REPORT TO

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

TITLE :

Poverty and Patterns of Deprivation

in the Soviet Union

AUTHOR :

Mervyn Matthews

Reader in Soviet Studie s

University of Surrey, Englan d

CONTRACTOR :

The Frederic Burk Foundation, Incorporated

San Francisco State Universit y

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR :

Mervyn Matthew s

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER :

627-4 b

DATE :

19th April 198 5

The work leading to this report was supported in whole or in part fro m

funds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East Europea n

Research .

Poverty and Patterns of Deprivation

in the Soviet Union

b y

Mervyn Matthews

Not to be quoted without the permission of the author .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S

Many friends and colleagues have helped, directly an dindirectly, with this research project . I would like t othank the trustees of the National Council for Soviet an dEast European Research (Executive Director Dr . V . Toumanoff ,Deputy Director Dr . B . Ruble) for providing financial sup -port at a time when the pressure on funds was particularl ygreat . I hope that the information analysed in this report ,and in my forthcoming book on Soviet poverty, justify thei rpatience . Two other institutions helped greatly with th efunding . A small grant awarded by the Research Committee o fSurrey University (UK), where I have toiled for many years ,gave me the opportunity to travel to the USA in 1981 an dmake important preliminary arrangements . A Fellowship fromthe Leverhulme Foundation enabled me to make an assure dstart on the project several months before finance becam eavailable from the National Council .

I could not have conducted this survey without suppor tfrom many scholars at U .S . universities . I would like t othank Professor Vladimir Treml of Duke University, and Pro-fessor Gregory Grossman of the University of California a tBerkeley for supporting the idea in its earliest days, an dproviding help with an important section of the question-naire . Professor Bernice Madison kindly consented to b eDirector when the project was moved from Stanford to Sa nFrancisco State University . Her practical advice and una-bating enthusiasm were invaluable throughout . Dr . Lawrenc eEisenberg, Director of the Frederic Burk Foundation, Inc . ,(SFSU), together with his staff, ensured exemplary adminis-trative backing .

Much of the computerisation was done at the University o fSurrey . There I would like to thank the Vice Chancellor ,Dr . A . Kelly, for his sympathetic response to requests fo rleave of absence, and Professor Nigel Reeves, Head of th eDepartment of Linguistic and International Studies, fo reasing the problems of temporary departure . Miss ValeryHarmer and the staff of the Computing Unit led me throug hthe everglades of computing, and carefully handled all dat aentry .

Several former Soviet citizens helped to find families suit -able for interviewing, and conducted the interviews . I amgrateful to Mr . Konstantin Miroshnik for the especiallygreat effort which was made in Israel .

i

Finally, I wish to thank Professor Adam Ulam, Professo rMarshall Goldman and the Fellows of the Russian ResearchCentre, Harvard, for allowing me to devote the first semes -ter of a Mellon Fellowship entirely to the writing of thi sreport . Completion of the project within the last deadlin ewould have been very difficult otherwise .

EXECUTIVE SURVEY

This study was designed to elucidate important aspects o fpoverty life styles among Soviet urban families who have emi-grated to the West in recent years . Most of the informatio nthey provided appertains to the years 1977-79 . Although thes efamilies were not, and could not have been, amongst th epoorest in the land, they were well below the Soviet averag eand represented a substantial number of compatriots . Ou rprincipal conclusions to date may be summarized as follows :

1) The condition of the poor in the Soviet Union has bee nsadly neglected by researchers in the West . Yet the exis-tence of poverty some six and a half decades after the revo -lution must be counted as one of the greatest failures o fthe Soviet experience, and deserves careful monitoring . Theword itself cannot of course be used in official sources t orefer to any social condition in the USSR, and no officia lestimates are available . The contrast with the flood o finformation on poverty in other lands is stark indeed .

2) Widespread poverty has exceedingly negative implica-tions for Marxist-Leninist doctrine . The central aims of th eBolshevik revolution were not only the rapid establishmen tof a homogenious society, but also the eradication of want .The signal failure of Soviet power to achieve these aim srequires illustration, both for Soviet citizens and publi copinion abroad .

3) Respondents in the survey believed that living stan-dards similar to their own were widespread in the USSR .Clearly, we could not establish the extent of povert ydirectly from sample materials . But a perusal of Sovie tdata which we recently undertook for our book " Poverty inthe USS R" , now accepted for publication in the UK, suggest sthat in the late seventies some two fifths of the non -peasant labour force earned less than the sum needed t oachieve the minimum level of subsistence proposed by Sovie tscholars for a small urban family . This compared with abou ta ninth of the population reported to be under the povert y" cut-off " level in the USA . A tentative comparison of th eofficial US and "academic " Soviet poverty thresholds sug-gests that the Soviet threshold is much lower .

4) The occupation groups most likely to be low-paid, andin poverty, as shown by the respondent s ' own jobs and their

listings of others, recall similar groups in Westernsociety, and comprise mostly unskilled manual and servic epersonnel . However, many high-grade specialists are poor a swell, and pay differentials between the sexes remain large ,to the detriment of women . The great majority of pensioner s(who figured in our sample only as family members) had pen-sions close to the state minimum .

Despite their low income, the Soviet poor pay significan tamounts of income tax, the average rate for the sample bein gabout 9% of gross pay . This, of course, is over and abov ethe (relatively high) state mark-ups on consumer goods .Very few of the families received social security benefit sfor children, mainly because the stipulated threshold fo rpayment was too low . There is much reliance on the " secondeconomy " , most of it of dubious legality .

5) As for accommodation, we find that the Soviet poo rlived in very cramped conditions, though average amounts o fliving space were not much less than among the public a tlarge . Modern amenities were in many cases lacking, an dtenants had to do a surprisingly large proportion of thei rown repairs . The cost of housing among poor people, eve nwithout repairs, ran at about 10% of income, and was thu sfar above the published national averages, contradicting (a swith income tax) the Soviet claim that rates are nominal .The holdings of household goods defy brief summary, but a sone might expect, suited the exigencies of Soviet reality .The survey produced some interesting information on condi-tions in the so-called communal, or multi-occupationa lflats, which are still a prominent, but under-researche daspect of the Soviet urban scene .

6) That certain foodstuffs, particularly meat and vegeta-bles, are usually difficult to come by in many parts of theUSSR is well known . Our survey attempted to quantify pur-chases, estimate consumption, and identify the sources use dby the poor . Although appraisal in this sphere is particu-larly difficult, we found that the quantities recalled th econsumption levels claimed as national averages a decade an da half earlier . Purchases of good or average meat were low ,and in some cases vegetable and fruit consumption was als olow and seasonal . Many quantities did not reach the idea lstipulated for poor families by Soviet economists in th emid-sixties . Some products (principally meat, fruit andvegetables) had on occasions to be obtained from the collec-tive farm markets, though prices there were significantl yhigher than in state shops . Overall, food costs stil labsorbed nearly two thirds of the total family budget ( awell-recognised feature of poverty in capitalist society) .There was still clear evidence of a shortage of heavy outerclothing .

7) A key question in any assessment of poverty is th edegree to which it is binding on those who suffer from it ,in other words, whether a " poverty trap" exists . Theresponses to our questions on social mobility indicate tha talthough there was considerable movement as compared wit hthe older generation, respondents now in mid-career hav eeffected little substantive change in their own occupationa lstatus . This rather implies that mobility has slowed, s othat anyone starting a career in a low-paid job has a goo dchance of staying in it . The poor have gained much from th egrowth of educational facilities, but there is evidence of apalpable discrepancy between educational achievement an doccupational status .

8) Poor people ' s understanding of the causes of povert yin the USSR proved to be of some interest . Among the rea-sons most frequently offered were alcoholism, misdirecte dconsumer policies, militarisation, and, on a more persona lplane, a failure to adapt to circumstances (by obtaining abetter job, more education or training) . The report summar-ises a little information which was gathered on th

e sensitive matter of begging.

9) Although the condition of the poor in the USSR is ,from a Western perspective, unenviable, they are in som erespects less vulnerable than one might suppose . People atthe level of poverty featured in this report avoid unemploy -ment, (though were it to become a major problem we see lit-tle reason why they should enjoy special protection fro mit) . Most still, by capitalist standards, have moderat ehousing costs, and considerable security of tenure (no case sof eviction being reported) . Many have benefitted from thehouse-building programmes of recent decades . Their die tmight be far from satisfactory, but it is well above malnu-trition . The clothing situation, though difficult, is no tdisastrous .

The replies to some of the questions posed on levels o fsatisfaction revealed a fair degree of adaptation to long -standing difficulties . (Social groups who are poorer thanthose in our sample may react differently) . Our question-naire was not politically orientated, but political pres-sures seemed to affect people ' s work and lives les sfrequently than we anticipated .

10) The responses provided by the sample provide furthe rreason for distrust of Soviet claims regarding living stan-dards, and demonstrate the importance of individual qualita -tive analysis .

11) There are few grounds for believing that significan timprovements took place in the living conditions of Sovie tpoor between the years covered by this report and the pres -

- v -

ent, although this is not a subject of analysis here .Economic progress is reported to be poor, and the leadershiphas evinced an unusual degree of concern about the need t oimprove living standards (probably indicating unease) .

12) The contents of this report represent the mai nresults of our analysis to date, but by no means exhaust ou rinvestigation of the subject . The 348 questionnaires pro-vided by the survey contain a good deal of information (o nsocial mobility, marriage, and particularly education) whic hwill require further attention . A more extended treatmentof the place of poverty in Soviet society, together withmaterial from official and " samizdat " sources may be foun din the volume mentioned in paragraph 3 above .

CONTENT S

Acknowledgements

i

Executive Survey ii i

Section I : Survey Organisation and Associated Matters 1

The Nature of the Sample 2Representativeness 1 3Soviet and US Poverty Thresholds : Some Hypotheses 1 4

Section II : Low Pay and Popular Responses . .

. 1 6

" Secondary " Income 1 8Overtime, etc 1 9Illegal Activities at the Workplace 2 0Activities Outside the Workplace 2 0

Pensioners ' Income 2 4Note on Unemployment 2 6

Section III : Living conditions 2 7

Single-occupancy Council and Enterprise Flats 2 7Multiple-Occupancy, or Communal Flats 3 2Cooperative Flats 3 3Other Types of Housing 3 4Residential Variations 3 5Furniture and Household Durables 3 6

Section IV : The Family Food Basket 3 9

Food Purchased 3 9Some Comparisons of Consumption 4 3Sources, Costs, and the Popular Response 4 5

Section V : Clothes 4 7

Section VI : Social Mobility 5 0

Inter-generational Mobility 52

Intra-generational Mobility 5 4Marriage Partners 5 6Low-Prestige Jobs 5 7

Section VII : Perceptions of Poverty 6 0

Begging 6 4

Appendix A : Note on the Reliability of Responses .

. 6 6

Appendix B : The " Khrushchev " Minimum Budgets .

. 6 8

Appendix C : Old Age Pensions 7 5

TABLE S

1. Distribution of Families by Year of Emigratio nand PNG* 3

2. Distribution of Families by Size andComposition* 4

3. Distribution of Family Members by Age 5

4. Distribution of Families by Net Official pe rCapita Income (Roubles, monthly)* 6

5. Distribution of Families by Total per Capit aIncome (Roubles, monthly) 7

6. Distribution of Adults by Current Occupatio nGroup 8

7. Distribution of Adults by Educationa lAchievement (%) 1 0

8. Ethnicity of Adults 1 1

9. Locational Characteristics of Families (1) 1 1

10. Locational Characteristics of Families (2) 12

11 . Official Earnings of Husbands and Wives, wit hReported Deductions 17

12. Illegal Earnings at the Workplace 2 0

13. Private Activities Outside Work 2 1

14. Motivation for Private Work (%) 2 3

15. Old-age Pensions Among Grandparents* 2 5

16 . Distribution of Families by Type of Dwelling an dLiving Space 2 8

17 . Domestic Amenities in Publicly-Owned, Single -Occupancy Flats 2 9

18. Repair Work in Publicly-Owned Flats (%) 3 0

19. Furniture by Quantity and Source 3 7

20. Purchases of Major Comestibles 4 0

21 . Food Consumption Patterns (Per Capita ; pe rAnnum ; Monthly) 4 4

22 . Active Male Wardrobe (Per Capita Holdings o fPrincipal Items) 4 8

23. Intergenerational Mobility (Occupation) 5 1

24.Intergenerational Mobility (Education) . .

. 5 2

25. Reasons for Failure to Obtain Promotion

. 5 5

26 . Husband and Wife by Occupational and Educationa lCategories* 5 6

27. Low-Prestige Occupations, with Assessed Wage 5 8

28. Common Explanations for Poverty 61

Section I

SURVEY ORGANISATION AND ASSOCIATED MATTERS

The first interviews were conducted in the summer o f1982, and took the form of a pilot study of 25 families ,living mostly in the New York, Chicago and San Franciscoareas . The main body of the questionnaire was finalised i nthe course of this work, only minor additions being effecte dlater . Systematic interviewing began in the USA in Septem-ber 1982, and was extended to Israel in January, 1983, so a sto expedite data collection . The application of question-naires was completed everywhere by the end of May, 1984 ,when the sample comprised responses from 348 families an d442 working members .

All interviewers were former Soviet citizens known t omyself or colleagues . All had considerable experience o fsuch work, were involved in other research projects, or ha dconnections with respectable university departments . Themain burden of interviewing was borne by nine persons in th eUSA and one in Israel .' Assurances of anonymity were givenin every case, though interviewers were asked to keep care-ful note of familie s ' names and addresses, should clarifica -tion of answers be needed . This arrangement worked fairl ywell . Some little time was needed for interviewers to mas-ter the selection rules and questionnaire format, whic hmeant that about a score of questionnaires had to b erejected as substandard . The results obtained from accepta-ble questionnaires were analyzed by means of SPSS program son the PRIME computer at Surrey University, England, and o nthe IBM at the Harvard Office for Information Technology .

The full questionnaire is a document of eighty seve npages, divided into three parts . Part " A" contains section son family composition, income, housing, food consumption ,selected expenses, possessions, holiday patterns, househol dgoods, and children ' s education . Parts " B " and " C " , whic hare identical, were designed for application to one or tw o

1The interviewers were paid pro rata for locating families ,(which was always done by personal acquaintance or throughfriends), for conducting the interviews, inserting som ecoding, and making additional enquiries . The respondent sparticipated voluntarily, without payment .

- 1 -

working members of the same family (husband or wife) a savailable for interviewing . These parts covered employment ,social mobility, further education, marriage, clothes, cer-tain time uses, and elicited repondents ' opinions on theextent and causes of urban poverty in the USSR . Some infor-mation was sought on destitute people observed outside th ehome . Most of the questions were formulated in accordanc ewith our own understanding of Soviet reality, after du econsultation with former and present Soviet citizens . Thesection on income, however, owes much to the work of Pro-fessors G . Grossman and V . Treml .

The replies to all parts of the questionnaire (A, B and C)were loaded into a data bank called " DDE 0000 " with 34 8cases . However, in 94 families two working members wer einterviewed (completing both parts B and C) and these data ,comprising 442 cases, were used to form a second data ban k" BCSEP " , which was more convenient for some calculations .This is referred to below as occasion demands .

1 .1

The Nature of the Sampl e

The great majority of the 348 families interviewed lef tthe Soviet Union between 1978 and 1982, and reported o ntheir experiences in the years 1977-1979 (table 1) . Wedecided to focus analysis as far as possible on small, bu tfull families, " family " being understood in the sense o fpersons who were related or closely associated and whoshared the same residence . In 323 cases the head of thehousehold was a man (the husband), and all families con-tained a mother . 342 had between three and five members ,(table 2) .Six two-member families were included because they were o fparticular interest for other reasons . All families con-tained at least one working member, and 322 had at least on eresident child . Pensioners and unemployed adults appearedonly as members of a given family unit . The average famil ysize was 3 .91, a figure which may be arithmetically dismem-bered as : husband 0 .928 ; wife 1 .00 ; grandfather 0 .089 ;grandmother 0 .322 ; other adults 0 .063 ; children 1 .508 . Th esample is therefore fairly homogeneous in terms of famil ysize and membership .

The lowest acceptable age for the head of family (o rprincipal earner) was thirty years in the last normal yea rof residence in the USSR (or " PNG " to use the Russian ini-tials) so as to exclude persons whose earnings were likel yto be low through youth or professional immaturity, (tabl e3) . Thirty five .or even forty would have been a bette rthreshold for this purpose, but the difficulty of findin gfamilies precluded it . The average age of women was lower

3

Table 1 : Distribution of Families by Year of Emigration an dPNG::

Year of N 7 PNG N %Departure

1975-1977 15 4 .3 1974-1976 24 6 . 9

1978-1980 287 82 .5 1977-1979 303 87 . 1

1981-1983 46 13 .2 1980-1981 21 6 . 9

Totals 348 100 .0 348 100 .0

*PNG - " Poslednii norma l ' ny god", or the last year i nwhich respondents consider that they lived a norma llife in the USSR, unaffected by their subsequen tdeparture .

than that of their spouses, but even so nearly eighty pe rcent of them were thirty or over . The sample contained 3 1grandfathers and 114 grandmothers, of whom 21 and 10 6respectively were over normal retirement age . Of the 48 0minors, 184 were six or under, and 296 were aged 7-17 . Al lbut one of those in the latter group were in full-timestudy, reflecting the effectiveness of educational coverag ein urban areas, even among the less privileged socia lgroups . The 65 "other adults " included 46 grown childrenstill living with their parents . Of these 42 were stil lengaged in some form of schooling, while the remainder wer eeither employed or retired . '

Income is central to any definition of poverty, so th eparameters set for the selection of respondents were in thi srespect particularly stringent . Families were sought with aper capita " official " income of up to 70 roubles a month ;working members were generally to have a gross "official "wage or salary of not more than 150 roubles a month . Side ,or " secondary " earnings were not to amount to more than 2 5roubles a month per capita . More detail on the definition sused in this report is to be found in Section II below .

2 Since so many members of this group were in "transitiona l "situations between school and employment they are omitte dfrom analysis in tables 6 and 7 below .

Table 2 : Distribution of Families by Size and 'Composition *

Family Members Number of Familie s

Two-member families 6

Three-member families 10 0

Father, mother,

one child (72 )

Four-member families 17 2

Father, mother,

two children (123 )

Father, mother,

grandmother ,one child (26 )

Five-member families 6 5

Father, mother,

grandmother ,two children (42 )

Father, mother,

grandfather ,grandmother, one child (9 )

Six- to eight-member families 5

Total 348

*The predominant types of three, four and five-membe rfamilies are shown in brackets . There are, of course ,numerous other combinations .

The reasons for the choice of these figures are briefl yas follows .' Seventy roubles is a moderate estimate of th eamount which had to be earned in the late seventies in orde rto match the per capita "poverty threshold " of 66 .6 roublesproposed by Soviet welfare economists for small urban fami-lies around 1965 . We are prepared to admit that a fulle rallowance for inflation, income tax, and other likely outgo-ings could have taken the figure several roubles higher, bu tfor sampling purposes we had an obvious interest in keepin gthe threshold as low as possible . Our wage limit of 15 0roubles was set significantly lower than officiall y

' For further discussion of this, and its implications fo restimating the extent of poverty, see Appendix B .

5

Table 3 : Distribution of Family Members by Age

0-6

7-17 18-25 26-29

30-39 40-49 50-59 60+ Total s

Husbands

-

- - 12

182 84 42 3 32 3

Wives

-

- 9 63

175 75 26 - 348

G'fathers

-

- - -

- - 5 26 3 1

G'mothers

-

- - -

- - 33 81 114

Othe radults

-

- 45 5

3 1 3 8 6 5

Firs tchildren

84

200 - -

- - - - 28 4

Secon dchildren

97

92 - -

- - - - 18 9

Othe rchildren

3

4 - -

- - - - 7

Total adults : 881 Total children : 480

published average for 1979, (163 .3 roubles), but high enoughto make the location of respondents practicable . The per-mitted ceiling for secondary earnings, on the other hand ,had to be set low enough not to affect the presumed "pov-erty " life-style .

The distribution of sample families by official incom ewas satisfactory for our purpose, and is shown in table 4 .The median per capita was 54 .0 roubles, and 36 .8% of th efamilies fell below the 51 .4-rouble per capita mark, thu sfailing to reach even the benchmark proposed by Sovie tscholars for the mid sixties . In the context of the lat eseventies such families undoubtedly experienced severe hard -ship . Although the scope of our study precluded detailedassessment of family outgoings, we found that our averag ecostings of food, clothing and shelter together absorbe dabout 90% of this sum .

Secondary income is by no means easy to estimate, beingunevenly distributed and often illegal in character (see pp .20-24 below) . Nevertheless we have concluded that officia learnings were in this manner supplemented by 14 .8 rouble s

6

Table 4 : Distribution of Families by Net Official per Cap-ita Income (Roubles, monthly) *

Income Familie sN

%

29 rouble sor less 6 1 . 7

30-34 .9 6 1 . 7

35-39 .9 16 4 . 6

40-44 .9 28 8 . 1

45-49 .9 49 14 . 1

50-54 .9 85 24 . 5

55-59 .9 82 23 . 6

60-64 .9 53 15 . 2

65-69 .9 19 5 . 6

70 rouble sor more 3 0 . 9

N :

348

Median : 54 .0 rouble s*Net of income tax, trade union dues, and gifts at th ework-place .

per employee over the whole sample . Taking this int oaccount, total per cap ita income (net official income plu sall unofficial earnings, divided by the number of famil ymembers) rises to a per capita median of 60 .9 roubles ,(table 5) . As for the poverty threshold, 13 .2% of the fami-lies had a per capita income of 71 .0 roubles or more . '

4 We have retained rouble fractions, as produced by ou rcalculations, though given the nature of the variable sthey imply rather too high a degree of accuracy . Most o fthe estimates of secondary income, as averaged out, arebest thought of as being indicative to within one or tw oroubles .

7

Table 5 :

Distribution of Families by Total per Capit aIncome

(Roubles, monthly )

Income

44 .9 roubles

Familie sN

%

or less 17 4 . 9

45-49 .9 15 4 . 3

50-54 .9 42 12 . 1

55-59 .9 75 21 . 6

60-64 .9 86 24 . 7

65-69 .9 52 14 . 9

70-74 .9 37 10 . 6

75-79 . 9

80 roubles

13 3 . 7

or more 11 3 .2

N : 34 8

Median : 60 .9 rouble s

A breakdown of employed householders by current occupa-tion category is shown in table 6 . As may be seen, th eseven-part scale devised for this task distinguishes betwee nmanual and non-manual jobs at three broad levels, with anadditional category for degree-holding (but low-paid) spe-cialists .' No responsible managerial staff, person semployed in agriculture, the army or the police wer eincluded in the sample . Pensioners who were fully retired ,and a few persons who reported no employment, were als oomitted from this table .

The categorization of jobs by content is no easy matter ,as has been long recognised . Discrepancies obtain between(for example) physical exertion and manipulative skill ;acquired knowledge and mental agility ; administrativ eresponsibility and psychological distance ; tedium andinitiative .

8

Table 6 :

Distribution of Adults by Current Occupation Grou p

Occupatio ncategory

Husbands Wives Grand -fathers

Grand -mothers

Total s

Unskille dmanuals 13 20 0 0 33 4 . 7

Unskille dservic epersonnel 10 31 3 5 49 7 . 0

Semi-skille dmanuals 57 29 4 8 98 14 . 1

Middle-grad eservic epersonnel 29 117 3 8 153 22 . 5

Highlyskille dmanuals 118 20 2 1 141 20 . 3

High-gradeservic epersonnel 11 70 2 3 86 12 . 4

Specialist sor similar 85 44 0 3 132 19 . 0

Totals 323 331 14 28 696 100 .0

It will be noted that 11 .7% of the employed personslisted, (regardless of sex) were in the least skilled occu-pations, manual and non-manual . The jobs most commonly hel dby men at this level were ' laboure r ' (6) and ' packe r ' (5) ; andby women - ' checker ' and ' sorter ' (10), ' store guardian ' andthe like (5) . We expected this group to be small in number ,since the emigration from which our sample is drawn consist sof families with skills thought to be marketable in capital-ist society (and initiative enough to face life abroad) .Moreover, Soviet Jews are not associated in the popular min dwith menial jobs .

Most respondents (69 .3%) were semi- or highly skille dmanuals, and what we might term middle or high-grade servic epersonnel . As may be seen from the table, the great major-ity of manuals at these levels were men ; women predominatedamong the non-manuals . By far the most common occupations

9

for men were fitter (37), drivers of various kinds (26) ,lathe and other machine operators (24), mechanic (21), elec -trician (17), plasterer, painter and repairer (15), an dwelder (7) . The women were most often nurses (35), book -keepers (34), secretaries, clerks and other office staf f(32), laboratory and various technical assistants (24) ,cashiers, accounts and planning clerks (14), kindergartenattendants (14), hairdressers and the like, (11) . The uns-killed female manuals were mostly in garment production ,(13) .

The remaining 19 .1% held specialists ' jobs normallyrequiring a degree . About two thirds of these were men ; themost common occupations were engineers (18), teachers (19) ,cultural workers of various kinds (13), and doctors (5) .The sample is therefore occupationally somewhat heterogene-ous, but since poverty embraces many socio-occupationa lgroups, this is not entirely disadvantageous for analysis .There is no close correlation between pay levels and jo blevels, as all the families in the sample were selectedspecifically for their low income, and each category con-tained many jobs .

The educational achievements of the adults are shown i ntable 7 . The figures reflect both the considerable advance smade by the USSR in this sphere in recent decades, and th eoccupational configuration of the sample . Noteworthy ar ethe relatively high levels of achievement in the ' second 'generation ; the divergent distribution of men and women (th elatter being rather more likely to have completed genera lschool, or a SSUZ, but less likely to have gone on to full -time higher education), and the gaps between the older an dsecond generations .

The ethnic composition of the sample is shown in table 8 ,and requires little comment . The fact that the overwhelmin gmajority of respondents were Jews does not, in our opinion ,significantly affect their perception of those aspects o fSoviet reality which principally concern us here . Most werethoroughly sovietised, and had experienced no other . Thefew, rather specific instances in which ethnicity migh tlimit the generality of our argument will be commented upo nas occasion demands . We are interested not so much in th espiritual domain (where ethnic individuality might be mor ecogently felt) as in the practicalities of life in the USS Rand the attitudes thereby engendered .

As for geographical location, nearly all the sample fami -lies interviewed lived in European areas of the RSRSR, th eUkraine, White Russia and Moldavia, (table 9) . However, si xfamilies came from the Baltic republics, and two did no treveal their place of residence . 58 .0% lived in towns o fover half a million inhabitants, mainly the republican capi-

1 0

Table 7 :

Distribution of Adults by Educational Achievement

(7)

Husbands Wives G ' dfathers G ' dmother s(323) (348) (31) (114 )

General school ,classes

1-8 16 .7 12 .9 74 .2 66 . 7

General school ,complete,

full-time 22 .6 34 .2 0 .0 15 . 8

complete, part-time 9 .9 1 .1 3 .2 0 . 9

*PTU 26 .0 4 .3 3 .2 0 . 0

*SSUZ,

full-time 7 .4 28 .4 12 .9 2 . 6

part-time 4 .3 10 .9 0 .0 2 . 6

*VUZ,

full-time 11 .1 6 .0 3 .2 5 . 3

part-time 1 .2 1 .4 0 .0 0 . 0

No education,

o rnone revealed 0 .6 0 .6 3 .2 6 .1

*PTU : Low-grade vocational school .

SSUZ : Secondary specia leducational institution . VUZ : Higher educational institution .

tals ; on the other hand, 42 families, or 12 .1% came fromsmall, or very small towns, (table 10) . Chernovtsy (228,000 )and Beltsy (135,000), both in the Ukraine, together provide dfifty-three families, or 15% of the sample . '

6 The fact that so many families should have come from tw orelatively small towns was, of course, due to the fac tthat respondents tended to know people from their ow nlocality, live near them in emigration, and propose the mas suitable material for the survey .

1 1

Table 8 : Ethnicity of Adult s

Ethnic

Husbands Wives Grand- Grand- Other %Group fathers mothers adult s

Jews 289 302 25 95 48 86 . 1

Russians 24 37 2 11 12 9 . 8

Ukrainian s

White

5 3 1 2 - 1 . 2

Russians 2 4 2 2 3 1 . 5

Latvians - 1 1 1 - 0 . 3

Estonians - - - - 1 0 . 1

Lithuanians 2 1 - 1 1 0 . 6

Not entered 1 - - 2 - 0 . 3

Totals 323 348 31 114 65 100 . 0

Total Adults : 88 1

Table 9 :

Locational Characteristics of Families (1 )

Republic s

RSFSR

N o

89 25 . 5

Ukraine 124 35 . 7

White Russia 36 10 . 3

Moldavia 91 26 . 2

Latvia 5 1 . 4

Estonia 1 0 . 3

Not declared 2 0 . 6

Total 348 100 .0%

1 2

Table 10 : Locational Characteristics of Families (2 )

Towns

500,000 inhabitants

No of families

% o f Sampl eand mor e

Kishinev

6 5Moscow

3 4Kiev

2 7Leningrad

2 4Minsk

1 7Odessa

1 1Khar ' kov

6

Towns yielding 4families or less

1 8

Subtota l

251,000-500,00 0inhabitants

202

58 . 0

'Vitebsk

6Vinitsa

5Zhitomir

4Gomel '

4

Towns yielding 4families or less

8

Subtota l

101,000-250,00 0inhabitants

27

7 . 8

Chernovtsy

3 1Beltsy

2 2Other towns

2 2

Subtotal

75

21 . 5

100,000 inhabitant sor less

4 2

Not declared

2

Total

348

1 3

1 .2

Representativenes s

The degree to which the sample is representative of th e' Soviet poor ' is a matter of central importance to theinterpretation of the responses . It is not, however, some -thing which is easily assessed .

The reason for this lies mainly in the diversity of th esocio-occupational groups which comprise " the poor " i nSoviet society . In the small urban family with one or mor eworking members, on which our study concentrates, occupatio nis a key factor in determining the level of well-being .' Ingeneral, the poor are employed just where, in the context o fSoviet economics, one would expect ; in light industry, th econsumer and service sectors, in health, education and cul-ture . Persons in unmechanised jobs are much more likely t obe low-paid, and thus poor, than those in mechanised occupa -tions . Persons with little or no skill tend to find them -selves at the bottom of the wage hierarchy in most sector sof the economy . A list of unprestigious and poorly-pai djobs, as assessed by our respondents, is given in table 2 7below .

Although the respondents in our sample had earning swhich were below average, we would not claim that thei roccupational configuration closely matched that of the urba ngroups most likely to be poor . The proportion of skille dworkers, medium-grade service personnel, and specialist samong respondents was too great . We would, however, argu ethat this discrepancy by no means invalidates the usefulnes sof the exercise we have conducted . We have, at least ,reached the middle and upper layers of the poor, and most o fthe sample family incomes lay well below the stipulate dpoverty threshold . The most common categories of the urba npoor are in any case well represented, and a mixed sample i snot without its advantages . Families from the smaller an deconomically neglected towns are prominent among respon-dents . Our main aim is to describe and assess the life -styles and attitudes of people who themselves experience dmaterial hardship, and the sample would appear to be quit eadequate for this purpose .

' Delineation of such low-paid groups is no easy matter, an doccupies a whole chapter in our book-length study o fSoviet poverty . Of course most socio-occupational group sin the USSR have some poor people in them .

1 4

1 .3

Soviet and US Poverty Thresholds : Some Hypothese s

The significance of the Soviet poverty threshold in prac -tical terms forms the substance of our report, so it wouldbe inappropriate to attempt a summary at this point . Never-theless we must comment firstly on the extent of the povertybeneath it, and secondly, on how it compared with the U S" poverty threshold " expressed in roubles or dollars .

Estimating the extent of poverty in the USSR, given th eabsence of so much essential data, is extremely difficult ,and as mentioned in the Executive Survey, we have dealt wit hit elsewhere . Our present assessment, however, is that i nthe late seventies some 40% of Soviet workers and employee swere still earning less than was needed to maintain a sta-tistical four-member family above the 70-rouble povert ythreshold . The figure is indicative only to within severa lpercentage points in either direction ; in our view th enature of the variables precludes greater accuracy, and th etemptation to imply it should be resisted .

The contingent was clearly huge, but a great improvemen tover the mid-sixties, when we estimated that a third of th elabour force was still not earning enough to surpass anearlier, 51 .4-rouble threshold . By contrast, the US Statis -tical Abstract figures reveal that in 1979 25 .3 millionpersons, or 11 .6% of the population were below the officia lpoverty ' cut-off ' level .' By this measure the Soviet poo rwere percentage-wise more than three times as numerous a stheir American cousins .

Any comparison of Soviet and US poverty levels is fraugh twith even greater difficulties, but the following points ar eclosely relevant .

1) The US poverty " cut-off level " for a non-farm famil yof four was said to be an annual disposable income o f$7,412, which for present purposes may be understood a sequalling a net wage of $3,706 for each of two earners .

2) The Soviet poverty threshold of 70 roubles per hea dmonthly for an urban family of four (as adopted here) trans -lates into an annual income of 3,360 roubles, or two ne t" poverty wages " of 1,680 roubles .

Two obvious comparisons may be made on this basis .

a) Simple Conversion of Rouble-Dollar Sums . The roubl ehas, of course, no proper conversion rates against thedollar, and the patterns of expenditure in Soviet an d

' Statistical Abstract of the United States (hence SAUS) ,1981, p .446 .

1 5

American families are very different anyway .' However, atthe official rate of exchange the Soviet family " povert ywage " of 3,360 roubles would have converted into $5,083 ,which was only 68 .6% of the US figure . The free, bu tillegal exchange rates would yield a considerably les sadvantageous comparison in rouble terms .

b) Equating Average Wages . In 1976 average real pe rcapita consumption in the USSR was authoritatively esti-mated to be 34 .4% of that of the USA, and the gap ma yactually have widened since .' If the Soviet average wag eis equated to 34 .4% of the average American per capit adisposable personal income (which was $7,293 in 1979), w earrive at a hypothetical Soviet average wage of $2,509 .

The above-mentioned Soviet " poverty wage " of 1,68 0roubles was 85 .7% of the Soviet average wage in 1979 .85 .7% of $2,509 would give a putative Soviet povert ywage, in dollars, of $2,151 . This is 58% of the US " pov-erty wage " quoted in a) above .

Both of these comparisons, though rudimentary, indi-cate that the Soviet poverty threshold was considerabl ylower than the US " cut-off level " , or to put it anotherway, that the US definition was much broader . Many peo-ple who, in terms of their relative income, came withi nthe state definition of poverty in the US, would b eexcluded from it in the USSR . On the other hand, theapplication of the US $7,412 poverty " cut-off " level ,converted into roubles, would have put the average Sovie tearner, and a majority of the Soviet labour force, into apoverty bracket .

3) Rouble and dollar figures must be considered not onl yin relation to the pattern of family expenditure, but als oin terms of how much they would buy, and the quality o fgoods and services available . Mr . Keith Bush, of the Radi oLiberty Research Unit, has estimated that in March, 1979, aweekly food basket for a Soviet statistically average famil yof four required 3 .4 times as much labour (measured in hour sof input) as a comparable American basket . There may havebeen a a like differential for clothing, although a tim ecosting of the principal services (housing, transport, edu-cation and health) would probably have favoured the Sovie tconsumer . Without venturing into further conjecture, we mayconclude that any calculation on this basis would als oproduce a sharp differential in favour of the US . "

9G . E .Schroeder and Imogene Edwards, " Consumption in th eUSSR : An International Comparison" US Government PrintingOffice, Washington, 1981 . p .v .

10 "Retail Prices in Moscow and Four Western Cities in

Section II

LOW PAY AND POPULAR RESPONSE S

In this section we shall review the levels and nature o fearnings among the families in our sample, and some of th eresponses these earnings engendered . Firstly, however, w eneed to define the concept of earnings used for presen tpurposes . We find it convenient to distinguish two broadcategories, namely " official " pay at the regular place, o rplaces, of employment ; and " unofficia l " earnings, both lega land illegal, in money, or kind from any other source .

Official earnings are paid monthly (sometimes with afortnightly advance) as salaries or wages ; in some cases thesums are fixed, and known precisely in advance, in other sthey vary somewhat according to time input, goods produced ,or bonuses . Where such variation occurred respondents wer easked to enter an average figure . The distribution of gros sofficial pay for working husbands and wives in the sample i sshown in table 11 . The average for husbands was 117 .1 rou-bles a month, and for wives 83 .3 roubles, while the weighte daverage for both was 99 . 9 roubles.11

March, 197 9 " , supplement to " The Soviet Worker, Illusion sand Realitie s " , Leonard Schapiro and Joseph Godson (eds) ,MacMillan, 1981, pp . 251-285 .

11 Occupational and educational differences between husband sand wives are referred to again in Section VI . This kindof sex differential is related to the lower average ageof the wives, and their sad monopoly of the child-bearin gfunction . But in the case of poor families it may wel lhave been increased by other factors : for instance, poo rhusbands having less chance than rich ones of helpingtheir wives into better-paid positions . The sociology o fthis matter merits further investigation .

Detailed results of the University of Illinois " SovietInterview Project " may prove helpful in this, as in s omany other respects, when they become available . Als orelevant are the results of a survey of wage rates con -ducted in Israel under the direction of Professor Gu rOfer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . There is als oa fair body of western scholarship on womens ' roles inSoviet society based on official sources (see, for exam -

- 16 -

1 7

Table 11 : Official Earnings of Husbands and Wives, wit hReported Deduction s

Wage Grou p(Rouble smonthly)*

MenN

Wome nN

ReportedDeduction s(Average ,roubles) **

Reporte dDeductions(Average,% )

1-79 .9 5 94 4 .7 6 . 7

80-89 .9 15 84 6 .4 7 . 7

90-99 .9 32 81 7 .4 7 . 7

100-109 .9 20 40 9 .8 9 . 6

110-119 .9 37 19 11 .5 10 . 1

120-129 .9 51 9 11 .6 9 . 6

130-139 .9 45 3 13 .1 10 . 0

140-149 .9 42 1 14 .2 10 . 1

150-159 .9 47 0 16 .3 10 . 9

160 & over 29 0 18 .7 11 .2

Men

N : 32 3Women N : 33 1

*Within each wage group the sex differential varie dby a maximum of 1 .3 roubles between the sexes (themaximum divergence occurring in the 100-109 . 9rouble group) .

**The reported deductions deviated from officia lrates, calculated at the category midpoints, by a naverage of only 66 kopeks .

Poor people should not (according to common wisdom) suf -fer any significant loss of income through deductions a tsource . The most important deduction from the Soviet wag epacket takes the form of income tax, to which must be adde dthe small but now almost universal union dues . The exten tto which poor people are so burdened may be judged from th etable . Not only were the official deductions in most case s

ple, G . W . Lapidus, " Women in Soviet Society : Equality ,Development and Social Change " , (1978) .

1 8

quite sizable, but they were also rather insensitivel yimposed . Thus people in the lowest wage groups were payin glittle less, in percentage terms, than those earning 15 0roubles or more . (In addition, about a third of the sampl ealso reported unavoidable gifts to workmates and colleagues ,averaging two to three roubles a month, but these may i nsome cases have been returned and and not taken into accoun there) .

The reactions of low earners to modest pay is of prim einterest in any sociological analysis . Of the 442 respon-dents in the BCSEP data bank, some 24 .0% thought that theywere "very badly, " and 35 .9% - " badly, " paid . However ,38 .9% rated their pay as tolerable, and 0 .9% thought it wa s" good " . We found no clear relationship between pay and th elevel of satisfaction with it, suggesting that other factor swere responsible . When asked what sum would be required t oprovide a minimal satisfactory standard of living for thei rfamilies, working respondents entered figures averaging 51 %above their income . It is not surprising that 27 .5% statedthey were " alway s " short of money before receiving their paypacket, and 44 .6% said it happened " frequently " . Only 4 .8%rarely, or never, encountered such difficulty . Only 6% o fthe respondents admitted to having some cash in hand, bu t36 .8% possessed savings accounts . The average deposit wa s291 roubles, or just over a quarter of the national pe rcapita figure .

One consequence of recurrent financial difficulty was avast amount of pre-paday borrowing ; in fact no less than81 .6% of the respondents said that they did this, on aver -age, eight times a year . Nearly all of the borrowing was i nthe 10-30 rouble range, over a period of three to ten days .The creditors were, in roughly equal measure, relatives ,friends, neighbours and colleagues . We would hesitate t osuggest a magnitude for these activities throughout th eeconomy, but vast sums must, in the aggregate, have bee ninvolved .

2 .1

" Secondary " Incom e

The low-paid worker might be expected to ease his lot b yearning more, through " official " channels or outside them .Such extra, or secondary income may be derived from 1) over -time, or employment in second jobs ; 2) illegal activities atthe work place, or 3) private work, legal or illegal, out -side the workplace, in the individual ' s own time .

1 9

2 .1 .1

Overtime, etc .

To judge from official data, overtime at the place o femployment is not widespread in the Soviet economy, at leas toutside agriculture . Managements are said to be reluctan tto pay the high overtime rates, and hidden labour reserve smay make it unnecessary, except at times of production cri-sis . Our returns for the 442 working respondents showe dthat although nearly half had endeavoured to find extr asources of income at their workplace, only sixty five, o r14 .7%, worked overtime . Earnings from it varied in mos tcases between ten and thirty roubles a month, with a media nfigure of 20 .4 roubles . Such work was curiously distrib-uted, in so far as it was intensive (averaging three t otwelve hours a week in almost 80% of the cases) but no trecognized as overtime, or at least not paid as such, fo rabout one participant in six . Second jobs, we found, wererather uncommon, as only only 22 respondents took them up .These jobs required on average six hours a week, and brough tin around 20 roubles a month . When averaged across al lworking respondents, overtime and second jobs seem to hav ebeen responsible for around 3 .5 roubles of monthly earnings ,and did not greatly ease financial pressures .

The reason offered by most respondents (84 .9%) for takingon extra work was precisely the desire to earn more money :but 77 .1% did so at the insistence of the management, o rbecause the work demanded it . 57 .7% participated because i twas socially accepted, and 48 .6% did so to help workmates .22 .9% said they worked because they found it interesting ,and 12 .5% because it improved their chances of promotion .Two other frequently mentioned reasons are, in our opinion ,somewhat intriguing . No less than 36 .2% of the part-timer sentered " for the good of society, " suggesting a fair degre eof social commitment : while 33 .3% entered " the insistenc eof party organs, " providing some indication of politica lpressure at this point .

As for new higher-paid jobs, some 33 .7% of the sample hadsought them . The reasons most commonly given for not doingso, despite financial pressures, were a heavy working wee k(83 .3%), the impossibility of finding such work (78%), lac kof time (73 .3%), and domestic obligations (66 .4%) .

12 .8% o fthe respondents considered that it was "very important " fo rthem to avoid illegal earnings, and another 29 .7% said i twas " important" for them to do so, leaving a residue o f41 .9% who were prepared to sin, should the opportunity pres-ent itself .

2 0

2 .1 .2

Illegal Activities at the Workplace .

The sample produced interesting evidence of illega lmoney-making at the workplace, involving 19 .0% of al lemployed spouses (26 .9% of the husbands and 11 .2% of thewives), table 12 . By far the most common form was the abus eof work facilities and materials ; fewer people admitted t obribery, or the sale of illegally procured goods or servi-ces . No one entered more than one type of involvement . I tmay be that such activities, being somewhat shameful, wer eunderstated ; to avoid possible embarassment the question-naire did not probe deeper into the matter . The configura-tion of other replies would not, however, suggest extensiv econcealment . The sharp differentation between men and wome nin the degree of abuse is noteworthy, but probably resulte dfrom differences of opportunity, rather than criminal pro-pensity . The effect of these activities on the family purs ewas remarkably even, the monthly " take " averaging 27 .6 rou-bles for men 21 .0 roubles for women, which gives an averag eof 4 .9 roubles for all working spouses .

Table 12 :

Illegal Earnings at the Workplac e

N .

AcceptingBribes

Use of Facilitie sfor Personal Gain

Sale

(theft)

o fgoods,

service s

%

Amt *%

Amt* N . % Amt* .

Men 8 2 .5

29 .5 62 19 .2 27 .5 17

5 .3

27 . 0

Women 9 2 .7

20 .0 16 4 .8 19 .2 12

3 .6

24 .1

N : 124, or 19% of all working spouse s

Men : N = 87 or 26 .9% of the husband sWomen : N = 37 or 11 .2% of the wive s

*Average amount earned, in roubles per month .

2 .1 .3

Activities Outside the Workplace .

A distinction between legal and illegal employment outsid ethe workplace is hard to draw . None of the respondent sentered money-making activities which would per se have beenactionable under Soviet criminal law . But all private earn -

2 1

ings are subject to relatively high rates of income tax, an dthose not revealed for this purpose are in effect illegal .In practice, people declare such earnings only a) if theyare a sole or obvious source of income, or b) it is hard t oconceal them (the two characteristics normally being inter -dependent) . Thus of the six respondents who let livingspace (a relatively overt form of private enterprise) onlyone declared it for tax purposes : of fifty three who engage din some form of private practice or gave lessons, only fou rreported it as being legally registered .

Table

13 : Private Activities Outside Work

Cases Reported Months *pe r

Annum

Hour sWeekly

Earnings**

MedianIncome

Averag eIncom eN

Repair Work 78 47 .3 8 9 27 1 8

Selling 7 4 .2 6 5 23 1 1

Lessons 5 3 .0 6 13 26 1 3

Artwork 5 3 .0 6 15 50 2 5

Cleaning 4 2 .4 6 10 22 1 3

Childminding 3 1 .8 10 10 21 1 0

Garden work 1 0 .6 2 60 18 3

Home products 2 1 .2 8 10 20 1 3

Privat epractice*** 48 29 .1 10 11 28 2 3

Other activ -ities**** 12 7 .3 6 12 25 13

N : 165 cases, shared among 160 respondent s

*Months averaged over two years . **Median earnings shownper month worked ; Average earnings - monthly, recalculate dover a year . All earnings are to the nearest rouble .

**':Including service by : medical personnel (6), hair -dressers (5), drivers (4), electricians (4) .

****Including six cases of renting living space .

2 2

In all 160 respondents, or 36 .2% of those to whom thi spart of the questionnaire was applied, reported earning soutside the workplace . Men were again much more likely to b einvolved than women (45 .6% as against 17 .1%) . There wer eonly five reports of more than one activity of this typ ebeing by any one person, but 69 individuals combined it wit hillegal practice at the workplace . The range of outsid eactivities, periodicity and earnings are summarized in tabl e13 . The pattern is rather uneven, but the main feature scontain few surprises . The most common work took the formof repairs, as one might expect from skilled manuals . Thefact that so few people were involved in cleaning and child -minding presumably follows from the shortages of livin gspace, access to day nurseries, and the presence of grand -mothers . Many people, particularly those engaged in " pri-vate practice, " showed a curious reluctance to specify wha tthey did . Some of this work may be safely inferred from th erespondents ' occupational profiles, and we have include dsuch cases at the foot of the table . Other individuals ma yhave undertaken menial tasks which they preferred not t odisclose .

As for periodicity, child-minding, private practice an drepair work were done most regularly . We were not able t operceive any significant correlation between this kind o finvolvement and the individual ' s occupation or educationa lachievement . The listing itself shows that a variety o fskills was offered right across the occupational spectrum .The sporadic nature of the work and variations between case scomplicate estimation of the sums earned (more so, w ebelieve, than in the case of activities at a regular plac eof work) but the median was 26 .7 roubles for each month o finvolvement . This in turn averages out at 10 .0 roubles amonth on an annual basis for all 442 respondents in th eBCSEP data bank .

The main motive for participating in private activitie swas financial, as was the case with overtime . All practi-tioners described financial need as " very important, " o r" important , " while 83% thought such activities were profit -able as compared with their principal type of work (tabl e14) . However, human nature being what it is, other non -financial motives (access to people or services, socia lusefulness, insistence of friends, and interest) were als oquoted .

Two problems require comment by way of conclusion to thi ssub-section . The first is the overall impact of unofficia learnings on poor people ' s income . Though overtime and thelike may be recalled with a fair degree of accuracy, illega learnings at the workplace, and especially earnings outsid eit, are more difficult to quantify . Averaging these sums

2 3

Table 14 :

Motivation for Private Work (% )

VeryImportant Important

No tImportan t

Need of money 92 .6 7 .4 0 . 0

Good income as comp -ared with main jo 28 .3 54 .7 17 . 0

Need of product sso obtained 8 .2 22 .6 69 . 2

Access to peopl eor services 10 .0 48 .1 41 . 9

Usefulness t osociety 1 .2 36 .9 61 . 9

Insistence o ffamily,

friends 1 .9 26 .9 71 . 2

Personal interest 1 .9 27 .5 71 . 3

Other 0 .6 24 .4 75 .0

across the whole sample is a risky business, no matter ho wit is done . With this proviso in mind we would estimate tha tunofficial activities raised family income by 28 .7 roubles ,or 7 .3 roubles per capita, monthly . This is 12 .1% of ou restimated per capita total income (given in table 5) .

Secondly, there is the problem of the typicality of suc hearnings among the Soviet poor as a whole . We estimate, infact, that just over 39 .0% of all working spouses in ou rsample were involved in one way or another, but with varyin gdegrees of frequency . 12 Families with very large secondar yincomes were specifically excluded, although they doubtles sexist . Our interviewers could freely include families wit hsecondary earnings of up to 25 roubles per capita monthly ,and there was no restriction on locating them . It i s

12 A calculation is needed because 212 of the spouses wer enot able to complete Part C of the questionnaire . It is ,however, reasonable to ascribe to them the same rate o finvolvement as those who did . The figures we have at ou rdisposal are therefore 124 at the workplace plus 16 0outside it, minus 69 persons in both categories (table s12 and 13) . On this basis we arrive at figure of 258 fo rall working spouses in data bank DDE 0000 .

2 4

possible that Jewish emigre families were more enterprisingthan others in this respect, and may have gravitated toward soccupations with relatively good opportunities for secondaryearnings . On the other hand, it is arguable that the fre-quency of such activity through so many occupations implie ssimilar rates through the economy at large . On these ground swe believe that earnings from the " second economy " are apotent factor in raising the income of the Soviet poor a tlarge, by something approaching the figures just named . Ou restimate of the incidence of " poverty wage s " in the USSR (p .iii above) includes an allowance for unofficial earnings o fthe types considered here . But for them poverty would b econsiderably more widespread .

2 .2

Pensioners ' Incom e

Pension rates in the Soviet Union are fairly generous inrelation to earnings, but the sums paid are in absolut eterms modest . Most types of pension are also service -related, so an incomplete work record may result in a par-tial pension, or even ineligibility . Soviet social securit y(like most other national systems) is intricate, and canno tbe discussed within the framework of this report . An over -view of the provisions for old-age pensioners, who ar enumerically preponderant, is, however, provided in Appendi xC .

The Soviet authorities are happy to publicise the exis-tence of the system, and publish some data on aggregat epension payments . At the same time they exhibit a markedreluctance to provide figures on the distribution of pay-ments among recipients, or of pensioner s ' income in general ,probably because the lower rates entail considerable hard -ship . Given the dearth of information, the amount of pen-sion received by 127 grandparents in the sample families ar eof some interest, table 15 .

The average for those above the official state minimum o f45 roubles a month was only 56 .9 roubles ; the average fo rthe 35 persons below the minimum (ie ., those who for variousreasons received only " partial " pensions) was only 35 . 1roubles . Eighteen grandmothers declared no income at all .In addition, seven people received disablement pension sranging from 30 to 120 roubles, with an average of 48 . 5roubles . 1 3

13 Twelve roubles was the lowest pension recorded in thesample, and 120 roubles (a state maximum) was the high -est .

25

Old-age Pensions Among Grandparents *Table

15 :

Rouble s

0-19 .9

No . of Persons

1 0 . 8

20-29 .9 8 6 . 3

30-39 .9 12 9 . 4

40-44 .9 14 11 . 0

45-49 .9 26 20 . 4

50-59 .9 21 16 . 5

60-69 .9 19 15 . 0

70-79 .9 6 4 . 7

80 and over 2 1 . 6

No incom edeclared 18 14 .2

N : 12 7

* A few grandparents retained full-time jobs though ove rretirement age .

We have no reason to believe that such modest sums wer euntypical among old people in poor families . Low pay trans-lates into lower pension rates, while a reduced or inter-rupted service record is particularly common among elderl ywomen who moved from village to town, or who had to stay a thome and look after children . Ironically, in familie salready experiencing material hardship, the older generatio nhas less chance to be self-supporting .

2 6

2 .3

Note on Unemployment

Given official denials that unemployment exists amon gable-bodied persons in the USSR, and the lack of comprehen -sive evidence to the contrary, the question of whether poo rpeople are subject to it is of special interest .

All the husbands, and (no less significantly) 95 .2% o fthe wives in our sample were in full-time employment . As fo rwork records, our 442 working respondents entered a mer eeighteen instances of unemployment throughout their careers ,of which only eleven had occurred within ten years previou sto the year described ." A few people became unemployed fo rgenuine or attributed health failure, since sickness ben-efits were successfully applied for in eleven cases . Al lbut seven lasted less than twelve weeks, and only two per -sons reported repeated unemployment . Nine instances wer evoluntary, prompted by low pay, unsatisfactory conditions ,or differences with the management . One person lost a jo bthrough enterprise closure, and five for political or ethni c(i .e . anti-Semitic) reasons . We take this, incidentally, a sanother demonstration of the generally apolitical stance o four respondents in their daily lives .

These few facts leave no doubt that people like thos erepresented in our sample were little troubled by the spec-tre of unemployment . Perhaps, as a consequence of thei rfinancial vulnerability, they avoided it more carefully tha nothers . It may well be that Soviet urban poverty, in gen-eral, is rarely provoked, or worsened by unemployment, an din this respect differs markedly from urban poverty i nadvanced capitalist societies .

14 We defined ' unemployment' as the absence of a main jo bfor over a month, despite active efforts to find workmore or less commensurate with given skills or ability ,in the same, or another acceptable district .

Section II I

LIVING CONDITION S

The great majority of sample families lived in single- o rmultiple-occupancy flats owned by local councils or individ -ual enterprises (table 16) . These were in fact by far themost common types of housing in Soviet towns in the lat eseventies . Of the other dwellings represented, the mos tprestigious, and possibly best appointed, were private, (ie .cooperatively owned) flats and houses with modern amenities .The houses without amenities varied in quality, and wer emost often located in the suburbs or in smaller provincia ltowns . The least fortunate families still occupied pri-vately rented rooms and hostels . Our main generalization swill cover single-occupancy, publicly-owned flats (types 1and 2 in the table) and the living conditions associate dwith them . Other types of dwelling will be dealt wit hrather more summarily .

1 .1

Single-occupancy Council and Enterprise Flat s

Let us begin with the question of living space . As maybe seen from table 16, the average amount was 8 .2 squaremetres per person, which was apparently close to th enational average1 5 This suggests that although poor peopl emay have worse housing conditions than others, there is nosimple correlation between poverty and floor area . Even so ,none of the 222 families housed in these flats had more thanthree rooms at their disposal, and average occupancy was 1 . 9persons per room, which is very high by western standards .Overcrowding was common in the localities represented : 88 .1%of the respondents reported that authorities would accep tapplications for re-housing only from persons with less tha nfive square metres per head . Housing conditions such a s

15 In 1979 the national average for urban living space (ie ,the area of habitable rooms, excluding kitchen, bathroom ,corridors, and common parts) was approximately 8 .5 squaremetres, calculated as 65% of urban total " useful " livingspace given in Soviet statistical compilations . See Nar-odnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1979, pp . 7, 418 . The figure fo rrespondents living in large towns was, however, only 7 . 6square metres .

- 27 -

2 8

Table 16 : Distribution of Families by Type of Dwelling an dLiving Spac e

Type of Dwelling

Flats :

1 .Single-occupancy

Families Average pe rcapita liv -ing space

Personspe r

roomN

council flat 211 60 .6 8 .3 1 . 9

2 .Single-occupanc yenterprise/organ -ation flat 11 3 .2 8 .1 1 . 9

3 .Cooperativ eflat 8 2 .3 9 .0 2 . 0

Houses :

4 .Separate Hous ewith amenities 5 1 .4 9 .6 1 . 9

5 .Separate Hous ewithout amenities 31 8 .9 8 .5 1 . 9

Rooms :

6 .Room(s)

in acommunal flat 66 19 .0 6 .2 2 . 7

7 .Room(s)

rente dprivately 7 2 .0 6 .4 3 . 0

8 .Ho5tel 5 1 .4 5 .3 3 . 3

9 .Other 4 1 .1 4 .4 2 .5

N : 34 8

these would be likely to qualify as " slums " in advance dcapitalist societies but this term, like "poverty " , canno tbe used to describe Soviet housing in published sources . Byfar the most usual space allocation on rehousing was 7- 9metres, although a few authorities granted 12-13 metres .The pattern of response to such a situation provides anothe rexample of how popular attitudes may be molded by dail yrealities, without regard to standards in other societies .No less than 40 .3% of the respondents considered that the ydid, in fact, have enough space ; 34 .6% thought th e

2 9

their disposal was rather inadequate, and only 24 .6% thoughtit grossly inadequate . Dissatisfaction was naturally high-est in the most crowded households .

Table

17 : Domestic Amenities in Publicly-Owned,

Single -Occupancy Flat s

Amenit y

Running

N

Families % in Workin gOrde r

Water 222 100 .0 97 . 7

Lavatory 222 100 .0 95 . 9

Electricity 222 100 .0 100 . 0

Gas 221 99 .5 99 . 5

Bathroo m

Central

188 86 .7 83 . 3

Heating 189 85 .1 84 . 6

Hot Water 152 69 .1 68 .2

Telephone 121 56 .8 56 .3

Some of the household amenities were, at least in quanti-tative terms, close to West European standards . All fami-lies had electricity ; nearly all had running water and som eform of gas ; while 95 .9% had the benefit of a lavatory whic hworked (table 17) . Other services (bath, central heating ,and hot water) were less satisfactory . Given that we ar edealing with low-income families, the incidence of tele-phones was singularly high . This may be due in part t oofficial encouragement of telephone usage and the low cos tof calls .

The overall capital and decorative state of the housin gwas said, in 80-90% of the cases, to be fair or tolerabl ewith only a tiny minority of respondents - one per cent o r

3 0

less - reporting them to be very good . However, heating wa sa problem for 13 .6% of the families, and damp trouble d14 .9% . As for unwanted animal life, 25 .7% recorded the pres -ence of insects, and 13 .5% - of mice, but there were n oreports of rats . The evaluation of housing conditions was ,of course, personal, and based on Soviet, rather than west -ern perceptions .

Soviet authorities make much of the claim that housin gcosts in the USSR are nominal, and amount to only a fe wkopecks per square metre . 16 It is interesting, in view o fthis, to consider the outgoings reported by the families i npublicly-owned flats . Since these varied in size and loca-tion, and rent sometimes included heating and hot water, th erange of payment was great . We found it expedient to asses sper capita outgoings as rent plus other services, but minu srepairs (of which more in a moment) . Using this definition ,we find that 96 .7% of the families in council and enterpris eflats reported payments of between 2 .0 and 12 .5 roubles pe rhead, with a mean of 5 .1 roubles or 9 .4% of their net offi-cial per capita income, (table 4) . This compares with 2 .7 %included in the " official " workers ' and employees ' famil ybudget for 1979 . 1 7

Table 18 : Repair Work in Publicly-Owned Flats (% )

Type of Housing Privately Tenants No Repai rRepair Office Hired Themselves Over 5

Labour Year s

Structura lRepair 19 .2 0 .5 0 .5 79 . 9

Repair o fDomesti cAmenities 56 .4 19 .5 19 .1 5 . 0

Decoratio nof CommonParts 23 .7 35 .6 30 .1 10 .5

16 See Bo l ' shaya sovetskaya entsiklopedia, (M . 1973), Vol .12, p .5 .

17 Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1979, p . 410 .

3 1

The main problem with repairs was that the cost oftendevolved on the tenants . It is true that during a five-yea rperiod preceding the PNG only 1% of the families did an ystructural work ; but between 89 .5% and 95% reported repai rof household amenities and decoration of common passages .Table 18 shows how much of this work was done either by th eoccupants themselves, or privately, at their expense .Irregular outgoings of this nature are particularly diffi-cult to judge retrospectively, but just over 80% of th erespondents entered figures of 10 to 60 roubles a year .

An all-too-familiar problem for public housing authori-ties in the west is non-payment of rent and other servic echarges . As far as we are aware, no information of thi skind is published in the USSR . The sample returns indicate dthat during the PNG and three years preceding it, only nin efamilies or their close relatives fell into arrears wit hrent, on a total of 23 occasions . This resulted in warn-ings, and in two fines of two and four roubles . The rate o ffailure to pay electricity, gas and telephone bills was eve nlower . The reasons for such exemplary fulfilment of obliga-tions lie, no doubt, in the small sums involved ; in a com-prehensive system of housing offices which can pressuris etenants . There were no cases of eviction . 1 8

18 Soviet citizens have a constitutional right to housing(Article 44 of the 1977 USSR Constitution) and a fai rdegree of security of tenure . However, articles 333 an d334 of the RSFSR Civil Code (matched in the codes of othe rrepublics) do give various landlord authorities specifi cright of eviction without provision of other living space .The principal justifications are a) " systematic violatio nor spoilage of accommodation, or systematic infringemen tof the rules of socialist communal living, rendering resi-dence for other people impossible in the same flat o rhouse, after warnings and social pressure have prove dineffective " b) (when certain enterprises and organisa-tions let accommodation to their own employees) th etenant ' s voluntary departure from the enterprise or orga-nisation (eg . to take another job), infringement of labou rdiscipline or criminal activities on his part . It is note -worthy that non-payment of rent is listed as a reason fo reviction only for private lettings .

Figures are not, of course, published, so we canno tdetermine how strictly these rules are applied . It is no tunknown for landlord authorities with ulterior motives t oarrange evicition cases deliberately, while the militi ahas the right to suspend residence permits for certai nviolations of the law . For the legal texts see " Grazhdan-ski kodeks RSFSR, s izmeneniami i dopolneniami na 1oktyabrya 1978, (M . 1979) ; " G . K . RSFSR, ofitsial ' nytekst " (M . 1968, pp . 207-210) .

3 2

As for housing in general, 90 .1% of all respondent sthought that the more opulent people in Soviet society wer ebetter, or much better, accommodated than the poor (in othe rwords, that housing conditions were indeed socially differ-entiated) . The main reasons for disadvantage were held t obe lack of money for improvement (86 .6% of responses), lackof the influence needed for betterment (84 .2%), lack o fmoney to buy a cooperative flat (62 .3%) and too many depen-dants (40 .8%) . Conversely, only 4% thought that poor peopl elacked a desire to improve their living conditions .

The scope of the survey did not allow us to investigat echanges in respondent s '

living conditions over time, but wefound that 32 .5% lived in buildings less than ten years old .Thus despite continued overcrowding, many had gained fromthe long-term improvements in Soviet housing .

3 .2

Multiple-Occupancy, or Communal Flat s

The Soviet " communal " flat (type 6 in table 16) has it sown constraints, many of which were revealed by the respon-ses of the 66 sample families so accommodated . These fami-lies were divided almost equally between those having on eand two rooms . The flats housed on average 3 .3 families, orbetween six and twelve persons . Living space here average donly 6 .2 square metres per capita, so it is hardly surpris-ing that of the 59 families who provided an overall assess-ment, 1' said their living space was inadequate, and 42 sai dit was grossly inadequate . One of the few advantages of thecommunal flat would appear to be lower rent ; this averaged3 .7 roubles per capita for all occupants in the sample . Ye tat 6 .9% of official income it was still above the officia laverage referred to above .

People living in communal flats must, of course, shar ekitchen, bathroom and corridor facilities . All, or nearlyall of the flats occupied by sample families had runnin gwater, sanitation, electricity, gas, and central heating .But other facilities were more problematic . Thirty one flat swere without hot water, and four had systems which did no twork : bathing facilities were absent in sixteen cases, an dnot usable in another nine . Just over a half had tele-phones . Vermin were much more of a problem than in singl eoccupancy flats, as there were 45 reports of insects, 32 o fmice, and 6 of rats . A much higher proportion of tenant sreported structural and maintenance problems . 19 At the sam e

19 Thus 16 and 5 respondents respectively reported th ebuilding to be in a bad, or very bad capital state ; 3 1entered bad, or very bad decorative order, 24 - heatingdifficulties, 32 - noise, 24 - damp, 27 - evil smells, 1 3

3 3

time, there was hardly less involvement in repair and deco -ration work . Although concern with capital repairs wa sagain exceptional, 42 families declared they normally did ,or paid for, domestic repairs, and 28 took responsibilityfor decoration of the corridors . The most typical outgoing saveraged 32 roubles a year .

Problems with payment seemed rather more common, with si xfamilies reporting (over the same four years), 21 cases o frent arrears, six cases of electricity, and eight of ga sarrears ; none of these, however, entailed fines of more tha ntwo or three roubles .

Despite these drawbacks, the communal flats covered b your survey were not the exclusive preserve of poor people .The respondents who lived in them, although poor themselves ,reported a fair mixture of income and occupation . Thus th eincomes of 263 neighbours ranged from an average " low" o f66 .8 roubles to an average high of 151 .5 roubles . As fo roccupational configuration, the trades and professions name dwere rather evenly spread over the categories we have use dfor analysis here, with an appropriate admixture of pension -ers (between 7 .6% and 14% of the occupants falling into eac hcategory) . In fact, specialists were most heavily repre-sented (24 .3%) and managerial staff least so, (3%) . In theoverwhelming majority of the cases social relations wer echaracterised as " good " or " average . " As we have indicate delsewhere, by 1980 a quarter of the apartments in Leningra dwere still in communal occupation . It is reasonable t osuppose that conditions in most communal flats approximate dto those occupied by the families in our sample .

3 .3

Cooperative Flat s

The presence in the poverty sample of eight families fro m" cooperative " or private flats requires separate comment .Not only are such flats difficult to come by, but purchaser sare normally required to deposit one-third of the cos tbefore occupancy, and the monthly repayments on the remain-der, even at nominal rates of interest, may be considerable .A poor family is most likely to acquire a cooperative fla tif a) it has an opportunity to buy at an earlier, and lowe rprice, because owners may legally resell only at the origi-nal purchase price, and prices have risen steadily over theyears : 20 b) a propitious offer of help is made by family o rfriends ; or c) it is in desperate need of living space, and

- poor light, and 26 - dirt .

20 M . Matthews, " Privilege in the Soviet Unio n " , Allen andUnwin, 1978, p . 45 .

3 4

prepared to take on a relatively heavy financial burden .

In four of the eight cases in our sample rent, withou trepair costs, absorbed around 13% of family income . All o fthe eight flats were located in large towns ; six were occu-pied by families of skilled workers and middle-grade white -collar personnel, with an average total per capita income o f62 roubles . The two cheapest flats (costing, untypically, 5and 12 roubles a month, without repairs) were occupied b yhouseholders with menial skills who may have had caretake rresponsibilities . Floor space in this sector ranged from5 .3 to 15 .0 square metres per capita, with an average of 2 . 2living rooms per family, a by no means a generous apportion-ment .

3 .4

Other Types of Housing

Other families in the sample lived in houses withou tmodern conveniences, (31 families) ; privately rented rooms(7 families) ; and hostels (5 families) . 21 Our analysis s ofar has not revealed any social characteristics by whic hthese, probably the worst housed people in the sample, coul dbe differentiated from others . Their dwellings, however ,fitted well-known stereotypes . The houses were rathe rsmall, averaging 2 .4 living rooms, and provided living spac eat the rate of 8 .5 square metres per capita . The lack o fmodern conveniences was in many cases serious . Although al l31 had electricity, and 28 had gas, 6 had no running water ,17 were without sanitation, and none had hot water, a bath ,or central heating . There was only one telephone amongs tthem . Twenty two of the occupying families reported damp ,18, 23, and one family respectively reported the presence o finsects, mice and rats . Dwellings of this type were mor ecostly to run because of their heating requirements an drepairs . The basic monthly outgoings on housing tax, servi-ces, and heating, averaged 18 .3 roubles, or 4 .8 roubles pe rcapita, a month . Nearly all repairs, regardless of type ,were done by the owners, or at their own expense, and a naverage figure of 14 roubles a month was obtained here .

Private renting is usually regarded as an undesirabl eoption in the USSR, mainly because of its high cost, incon-venience and at times dubious legality . The limited siz eof the questionnaire did not allow extra investigation o fthe few families thus lodged, but since so little is know nabout the practice, the points which emerged deserve men-tion . The amounts of space rented were minimal, averagin g6 .4 square metres per head, with an occupancy of 3 .00 per -sons per room . Family rents averaged 42 .3 roubles, or 12 . 4

21 Four families lived in other, unspecified accomodation .

3 5

roubles per capita, monthly . Private renting is usuall ydone on a fairly short term basis, unless circumstance sdictate otherwise . Yet five of the families had occupie dthese rooms for up to three years : five considered the spac eat their disposal to be inadequate, or grossly inadequate .Five families were without hot water or a bath, and four ha dno central heating .

Among the five families in hostel accommodation per cap-ita allotments of space fell to 5 .3 square metres, and veryhigh figures were entered for the use of some communal amen -ities . Two hostels were evidently without proper sanita-tion ; families complained of variously inadequate heating ,damp, and the presence of vermin . Three of the families hadlived in these conditions for five years or more . On eadvantage of such accommodation is popularly held to be it slow cost : but it is noteworthy that the families in ou rsample paid between 11 and 15 roubles a month, or 3 .8 rou-bles per capita, by no means nominal sums for low earners .

3 .5

Residential Variation s

How far the urban poor conglomerate in their " own" dis-tricts is another matter which, given the silence of Sovie tscholarship, calls for attention . Only 11 .2% of the sampl econsidered that such differentiation was clear where the yresided (particularly in the large towns of Odessa, Kiev ,and Leningrad) . Another 57 .2% said that it was discernibl eto some extent, while the remainder said there was none, o rcould not comment .

Such hesitation is, of course, understandable . In capi-talist countries, differentiating tendencies are strong .Local communities may be vociferous, and have more influenc ethan their Soviet counterparts over their immediate environ -ment ; a good deal of property is privately owned ; andalthough council controls are real enough, the quality o fcommercial services will tend to match local needs . Con-glomerations of the poor may be encouraged by the reluctanc eof richer, or more influential people to live in unattrac-tive or polluted spots, when better-quality property may b eobtained on the open market . In the Soviet Union, by con-trast, far-reaching standardization of urban development, aconstant housing shortage, nominal rents and the absence o fprivate commerce have tended to mask, rather than reflect ,social distinctions .

Not surprisingly, the respondents who could distinguis hpoor districts in their own towns had rather diverse viewson what characterized them . The features judged to be unsa-tisfactory were, in descending order of frequency, housing

3 6

(65 .9%), communal services (61 .0%), physical safety (51 .0%) ,shopping facilities (45 .1%), the condition of the street s(39 .0%), transport (31 .3%) and the atmosphere (23 .6%) .60 .8% of the respondents located the district they had i nmind within two kilometers of dirty or unhealthy productio nenterprises . Respondents were asked to say when the ythought construction of the given district was started . O fthe 205 who replied, 33% entered 1940 to 1959, and 36 .6 %1960 to 1980 . This response suggests that local authoritie shave been unable to change the character of local communi-ties merely by new building . In other words, poor district sare not necessarily old districts, and they continue to for mas the years go by .

As for apartment blocks, most respondents considered the mto be socially mixed, regardless of location . But the Sovie telite (defined at this point as " specialists and highly paidpersonnel") were thought likely to enjoy more exclusivehousing . Thus 50 .4% of the respondents thought they predom-inated in houses belonging to (large) ministries and organi-zations ; 28 .9% - in cooperative blocks ; and only fou rrespondents (0 .9%) thought they would be numerous in housingbelonging to local soviets .

3 .6

Furniture and Household Durable s

Soviet society has long since reached the stage when th eaverage family seeks to equip its home with the accoutre-ments of modern living - comfortable furniture, appropriat edecoration, and household gadgetry . However, finding th enecessary articles in the shops presents well-known diffi-culties ; the usual allotment of living space gives littl escope for embellishment ; and poverty inevitably places it sown limitations on purchase . Since no comprehensive studyof poor people ' s furniture, and what Soviet statistician sterm " cultural " , or domestic goods has ever, to our knowl-edge, been published, brief sections on these topics wer eincluded in the questionnaire .

As for furniture, virtually all families owned four o fthe seven major items named - tables, chairs, and beds andclothes cupboards - in apparently adequate quantities (tabl e19) . Most pieces, however, were rather old, and had been inthe household for at least five years . Two thirds or mor ewere bought new, in state shops ; of the remainder, roughl yhalf were bought second-hand, and half obtained as gifts o rlegacies . Holdings of the other items listed (sideboards ,carpets and armchairs) were, as may be seen, rather proble-matic ; they were also more likely to be acquired from secon-dary sources .

3 7

Table 19 : Furniture by Quantity and Sourc e

Household s

Possessing

Objects(%)

MedianNumber

Possessed

% Purchase d

New in Stat e

Shops

Table 97 .7 1 .9 77 . 6

Chair 96 .3 5 .7 78 . 9

Bed

Clothes

97 .4 2 .3 86 . 5

Cupboard 97 .4 1 .1 67 . 6

Sideboard 82 .8 1 .0 61 . 4

Carpet 62 .6 1 .1 31 . 1

Armchair 51 .4 1 .5 68 .4

The main reasons for absence of an armchair (!) weregiven as : not wanted (30 .7%) ; no money to buy one (33 .3%) ;and nowhere to put it (35 .3%) . The shortage of livingspace, and presence of 2 .6 beds per family, gives credenc eto the last response . Carpets, which pose no spatial prob-lem, and are a traditional sign of well-being, were no twanted by only 6 .4% of the families . 82 .8% blamed thei rabsence on a lack of funds . Nearly all families without asideboard wanted one : 35 .4% of those without could no tafford one, and 50% had no space .

The value of furniture may vary considerably according t ocircumstance, availability, wear and tear, the owner ' s age ,taste and family connections . Morever, assessment of tha tvalue is no easy matter . Responses indicated virtually bar erooms at one extreme to a respectable degree of accoutremen tat the other . The central 90% of our sample returned fig-ures of between 120 and 1000 roubles, with a median value o fabout 360 roubles .

Holdings of other domestic goods were fairly extensive ,and roughly matched the urban averages published for th elate seventies ." The goods, however, (with the partia l

zz Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1979, p .434 . Thus despit etheir low income, nearly all sample families had radio ,

3 8

exception of bicycles and vacuum cleaners) again tended t obe old . Generally between a quarter and a half were bough tsecond-hand, or procured without payment : sewing machines ,pianos, antiques and jewelry were much more likely to b eacquired by gift or legacy . Considerations of space wer eirrelevant for possession of most (the main exception bein gwashing machines and pianos), and hardly anyone said the ywere unavailable in the shops . The main reasons for absenc ewere the householders ' lack of interest in acquiring them ,and a lack of funds to do so . All in all, the figures fo rfurniture and domestic goods suggest a state of cramped an dmeagre adequacy, though there was obviously considerabl eunfulfilled demand .

If a fair assortment of articles were to be found i nhouseholds with so low a per capita income, several explana -tions may be proposed . The official ethic vaunts a hig hstandard of living, even if it does not ensure one, andencourages the acquisition of domestic equipment . Th edevelopment of heavy industry is not incondusive to th eproduction of ' heavy ' household goods . Long-term deficit sof other consumer goods have no doubt engendered specifi cemotional responses, encouraging acquisition as an opportu-nity 'not to be missed', and the longer use of persona lproperty . As for electronics, the authorities have alway sevinced a strong interest in the spread of radio and televi -sion sets for propaganda purposes . The high incidence o frefrigerators reflects the need to preserve foodstuffs ,while the possession of sewing machines has been encourage dby clothing problems . Thus does Soviet reality impose it sown exigencies, some more subtle than others, on the con -tents of people ' s homes .

television and a refrigerator ; just over a half had avacuum cleaner, a washing machine, and a sewing machine ;34 .2 % had a record-player, 22 .7 % - a bicycle, 12 .1 % -a piano . 8 .6% had some jewelry, (but in nearly all case sonly one or two pieces) .

Section IV

THE FAMILY FOOD BASKET

The assessment of food consumption by means of a surve ysuch as ours involves specific difficulties, the most impor-tant of which need to be mentioned at the outset . Firstly ,individual tastes may vary enormously, so that items con-sumed in large quantities by one household may be quit eabsent from another . The per capita consumption range may i nconsequence be very broad . Secondly, some comestibles ar eseasonal, and can only be bought for a few weeks of th eyear : some should be available all the time, but are not, a sa consequence of supply failures . Such items are not eas yto account for in a typical month ' s purchases . Thirdly ,the number of foodstuffs bought is normally great, an d(unlike the contents of a wage packet, for example) canno talways be easily remembered . Many families buy a signifi-cant proportion of their meals outside the home, and it i shard to fit this into any comprehensive dietary pattern .

Our main effort is therefore directed to illustrating, o na fairly general level only, the pattern of food procuremen tamong sample families, the costs involved, and attitude stowards the resulting diet . We shall concentrate on themore important staples, leaving aside foods which are con-sumed in small quantities, are difficult to measure, or ar eof less interest .

4 .1

Food Purchased

Table 20 gives the sample returns on a fair range o fcommon foodstuffs, most quantities being recalculated t oshow per capita consumption in pounds, ounces, or pint s(except for eggs) over a week . Nearly all families bough tthe commodities listed, but since the households were appar-ently stable, and had children to feed, this was only to b e

expected .

It will be noted that the range of vegetables bought i nany quantity was very narrow ; some 52% of the household sbought no salad, and 25% - no fruit, through the winte rmonths . The large quantities entered for fresh berrie s(over 78 .0% of the sample bought them at the weekly rate o f

- 39 -

4 0

Table 20 : Purchases of Major Comestible s

Quantitie s(lbs-o z

per week)

% o fSampl eBuying

Principa lSource s

Stat esho ponly

Coll .martonly

Bot h

1-04 99 .4 41 .2 15 .7 40 . 6

0-06 92 .8 41 .6 17 .4 40 . 1

1-12 98 .3 24 .6 23 .4 49 . 4

0-06 48 .3 51 .7 27 .3 18 . 0

1- 14 99 .7 24 .6 23 .8 50 . 4

0-09 84 .8 61 .8 18 .2 18 . 9

1-05 78 . 2

0-08 52 .6 31 .0 56 .0 4 . 9

0-14 97 .9 67 .6 18 .6 12 . 1

0-06 69 .3 88 .0 9 .5 1 . 2

0-06 94 .0 90 .5 3 .4 1 . 5

0-06 94 .8 68 .0 10 .0 20 . 8

(3 .4) 97 .7 78 .3' 8 .1 11 . 8

0-05 100 . 0

0 .34 99 . 7

(2 .6) 99 .4

Fresh vegetables,cabbage ,beetroot, onion

Other fresh vegetable sfor cooking

Salad vegetables, summe rmont h

Salad vegetables, winte rmont h

Apples and pears, summe rmonth

Apples and pears, winte rmont h

Fresh berries, summe rmont h

Meat of all types, fres hand preserved :

a) Good quality, poult ydry salam i

b) average quality, mixe d

c) Poor quality, bone ,grizle, fat

Boiled salami, sausage ,ravioli-type product s

Fish and fish products ,fresh and preserve d

Eggs (number )

Butte r

Oi l

Milk, liquid mil kproducts, (pints)

4 1

Cheese,

cottage chees eand like products 0-08 99 .1

76 .1

10 .8

12 . 2

Sugar 0-09 99 .7

99 . 4

Bread and bread product s(macaroni,flour,

biscuits ,without pastry) 3-14 100 .0

99 .1

-

-

Potatoes 2-13 99 .4

43 .7

4 .1

39 . 7

Tinned preserved vegetables 0-07 72 .9

-

-

-

Oranges,

lemons, bananas 0-05 80 .5

-

-

-

Preserved fruit,

berries ,jams and the like 0-06 74 .3

-

-

-

Pastries,

etc . 0-04 75 .9

-

-

-

Coffee 0-04 46 .3

-

-

-

Vodka and spirit s(adults only,

pints (0 .53) 54 .6

-

-

-

Wine and bee r(adults

only,

pints) (1 .40) 82 .8

-

-

-

Unless otherwise indicated, and bracketted .

Note : The table does not show sources for product snot usually bought at a market, or marginal source sof supply .

1 lb 5 ozs a head) is explained by the brevity of the seaso nand the shortage of other fruit and vegetables . Much of th esoft fruit is traditionally preserved as jam or compote fo rthe winter .

We endeavoured to assess meat purchases not only by quan -tity, which was modest, but also by quality . If all mea tpurchases are taken as 100%, only 23 .6% was of good quality ;43% was of average quality, or mixed, and 34% was of poo rquality, and included the cheaper salami . 47 .4% of the sam-ple did not enter any good meat at all . Tile low quantitie sof vegetables and meat are balanced by relatively high fig-ures for fish, milk and cheese . Most of the milk product sare known to be consumed in the form of yoghurt, milk con -

4 2

centrate, cottage cheese, and the like ; fresh milk is oftendifficult to obtain, while the heavier cheeses are expen-sive .

The families were asked about their purchases of a numbe rof more costly, but not luxury, commodities (tinned food ,citrous fruit and bananas, preserves, pastries, and coffee) .As one might expect, the quantities reported were small, an dmany families did not buy them at all . We were not able t opose questions about who ate what, but it is probable tha tpurchase of some fruit and confectionary was prompted by th epresence of children .

The consumption of alcoholic drinks was, as may be seen ,very moderate . 45 .4% of the families entered no spirits ,and 17 .2% - no wine or beer . The adult vodka drinkers amon gthem averged only 0 .53 pints (0 .38 litres) a month, whil ewine and beer drinkers consumed 1 .4 pints, (0 .66 litres) .These rates, to judge from other responses, are far fro mtypical of the urban poor . Jews, who made up the greatmajority of the sample, are on the whole thought to drin kless than gentiles, and those having the initiative to emi-grate would presumably have had extra incentive to contro lexpensive habits . Even so, consumption may have been under -reported . When asked to estimate how much vodka and spiri tthe " average worke r " drank, 94 .6% of the respondents entere dbetween one and three litres a week, with a median estimat eof 1 .5 litres (or 3 .1 pints) . This is compatable with popu-lar observation . Such a quantity of spirits, without bee ror wine, would have cost something in the region of fift yroubles a month, a large sum indeed for low earners . 2 3

The list of quantities shown in table20 represents foo dpurchased, not necessarily food consumed . A full estimat eof the latter would have to allow for deterioration (espe-cially in the case of vegetables), inedibility or wastage ,though one would expect such losses to be minimal among th epoor . On the other hand, one major, and several mino rinputs would have to be added . The first is, of course ,meals taken outside the home . 71 .5% of the families entere da median of 25 .6 meals per month at work ; most of the chil-dren in educational institutions also ate in school diningrooms, which in a normal month would have meant an approxi-mately equal number of meals per child . Lesser inputs woul dinclude food filched at the place of work ; gifts from famil yor friends ; berries or funghi collected in the wild ; occa-sional products from hobbies like fishing ; and produce fromthe odd garden plot (of which there were three in the sam-ple) .

23 See page 59 for further reference to this matter .

4 3

Some of these inputs surfaced in the questionnaires, butthe pressure on interview time prevented further exploratio nof them . Making allowance for wastage, the meals consume doutside the home, and some other inputs, we believe tha tactual consumption levels were probably about 15% above th equantities listed in table 20, the increment taking the for mmainly of carbohydrates and fat, (i .e . the standard fare inundistinguished Soviet eating places) .

4 .2

Some Comparisons of Consumption

The food consumption patterns of the Soviet poor are o fgreat sociological interest when compared with those o fother social groups in the USSR or abroad . This exercis eraises problems, if only because the official Soviet data o nfood consumption is set in broad, and methodologically unex-plained, categories . However, we have attempted to recate-gorize the sample purchases for this purpose, and th ecomparisons so obtained, though tentative, are worthy o fscrutiny, (table 21) . 2 4

We find that despite all efforts to order the sampl efigures in the most advantageous manner, they lag greatl ybehind Soviet national consumption rates . The gap cannot beclosed, even when the poverty basket is augmented for foo dobtained from the secondary sources noted above . It

s configuration would appear to match national consumption rate sa decade and a half earlier, aid betokened a relativel ymeagre level of sufficiency . It was still far behind th edeclared national averages for 1980, and even further fro mthe "perspectiv e " or long-term minimum proposed by Sarkisya nand Kuznetsova . A question which it raised quite firmly ,but has so far left unanswered, is the relatively smal lquantity of bread, potatoes and sugar entered by mos trespondents . These are the items, in our view, most likel yto be augmented by outside meals, but there may also hav ebeen some under-reporting, either through over-familiarity ,or because a high consumption of simple fare was thought t olook bad . On the other hand, the Soviet consumption figure sare known to be inflated by several kilos (much of which i sused for animal feed) . Hopefully, this discrepancy does no taffect the validity of other conclusions .

24 The fact that the national rates are also per capita doe snot, of course, make them directly comparable with th esample results . But at least the age and sex compositio nof the sample families are not too distant from thenational pattern which (presumably) underlies the pub-lished consumption figures .

Table 21 :

Food Consumption Patterns

(Per capita, per annum ; kilos )

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6 )

Foods"Minimum"Poverty

AverageSoviet per

Averag eSoviet per

Averageper Capita

"Perspective "Poverty

Povert ySampl e

(Soviet Diet Cap .

Consump . Cap .

Consump . USA Diet (medians )Categorisation) (1965) (1965) (1979) (1979) (mid 1970's )

Meat, meat product sanimal fat, conserves 44 .0 41 .0 53 .0 120 .4 75 .0 38 . 4

Milk &'Milk Products 146 .0 251 .0 319 .0 151 .2 184 .0 289 . 5

Eggs

(units) 124 .0 124 .0 235 .0 283 .0 153 .0 130 . 4

Fish & Fish Products 23 .0 12 .6 16 .3 6 .1 19 .8 8 . 8

Sugar 30 .0 34 .2 42 .3 41 .4 40-44 12 . 0

Vegetable Oil 16 .0 7 .0 8 .4 12 .2 10 .0 5 . 4

Potatoes 137 .0 142 .0 115 .0 66 .6 126 .4 59 . 8

Vegetables 121 .0 72 .0 98 .0 89 .2 164 .0 60 . 0

Fruit & Berries 28 .6 28 .0 38 .0 62 .2 81 .0 31 . 8

Bread, Macaroni, .Flour 145 .0 165 .0 139 .0 89 .9 174 .0 90 .0

Sources :

Sarkisyan and Kuznetsova, pp . 58, 105ff, 139ff (1,5 )Narodnoe Khozyaistvo SSSR v 1979, p . 41z , 1980, p . 405 (4 )Statistical Abstract fo the United States (1981), p . 126 (2,3 )

4 5

4 .3

Sources, Costs, and the Popular Respons e

Table 20 also presents some information on where sampl efamilies purchased their meat, vegetables, potatoes, fruit ,cheese and eggs . Surprisingly frequent use was made of th ecollective farm market, indeed a fair proportion of peopl ebought some items only there . This practice was certainlyencouraged by supply difficulties . An inability to buyimportant foodstuffs was reported by almost 90% of the fami -lies, the great majority entering a frequency of three t otwenty instances a month . The reasons for this were no tonly a lack of money (7 .8% of the replies), but absence o fgoods from the shops (33 .1%) or a combination of the two(58 .8%) .

Use of collective farm markets instead of state shops ha stwo well-known drawbacks . On the one hand, the markets ar efew and far between, and on the other (this being the mor esubstantive point) prices in them are normally between 2 . 0and 2 .5 times higher . Obviously, a person on a tight budge twould not choose to buy in a collective farm market, wer egoods of comparable quality available in the state sector .The responses, though impressionistic, suggest that use o fthe markets raised food costs by two or three roubles pe rcapita .

Costing in fact takes us into a further, and even mor edifficult dimension . Any estimate here involves not onl yquantities, but also seasonal price variation and source .Costs, it must be remembered, may vary from nil (in cases o fgifts, pilfered or home-grown items) to a significant su m(for food bought in the collective farm market) . Althoughrigorous assessment of all such outgoings is hardly possi-ble, we would propose two fair estimates . The first is theglobal sum entered by the respondents themselves : 98 .2 %assessed their outgoings, excluding outside meals, a tbetween 15 .0 and 53 .0 roubles per head monthly, with a naverage of 33 .7 roubles . The second assessment is our own ,based on the overall costs of individual items entered b y120 families who opted to give detailed estimates of th eamounts they spent on food . The range in this case wa ssomewhat wider, but yielded an average figure of 35 .4 rou-bles . Eating-out costs, in addition, averaged about fiv eroubles per capita .

The negative implications of food costs running at, say ,39 roubles a month for each member of the family hardly nee dto be laboured . They must have absorbed some 72% of officia lincome, or 64% of total income as assessed above . Thes efigures are much above the levels postulated in the "idea l "minimum budgets of the mid-sixties, and high by interna-tional standards .

4 6

The popular response to the difficulties of procurementand cost (which are, alas, a long-standing feature of Sovie treality) is again of particular interest . We decided t opose a question on satisfaction with family food, rathe rthan on the shortages in the shops, so as to determine atti-tudes as they crystalise out, as it were, as the dinne rtable . No one expressed himself "very satisfied, " but 28 .4%of the respondents were " satisfied " , and another 10% (makingnearly 40% in all) had no opinion on the matter . This lef t49 .1% who were " rather dissatisfied " and 12 .1% who were" very dissatisfied " .

The balance, in our opinion, is rather intriguing, andraises the question of why so many people were unconcerne dby what would, in most advanced capitalist countries, b eregarded as an intolerable situation . The most probabl eexplanations are social conditioning, habituation to queue-ing, and deflection of interest from dietary matters . Suchprocesses are, of course, greatly eased by the exclusion o finformation about relative abundance in other lands . A mor esympathetic interpretation would be that people who were" satisfied " had greater success in obtaining defici tproduce ; but the sample returns showed no evidence of this .

Section V

CLOTHE S

Clothing has long been a problem in the USSR, mainly as aresult of frequent shortage and high cost . The sampl eresults indicate that by the late seventies, despit eimprovements in production, and some fall in prices, clothe swere still a source of concern for poor people . 25 The prob-lems of analysis are again great, but we decided some gener -alisation would be feasible if we took a subgroup of male saged between 30 and 50 who would have a steady need fo radult clothing, but be less disposed than (say) a younger ,or female group to distort their living styles by heav yspending on fashionable garments . In fact, only 7 .8% o fthis subgroup (numbering 260) expressed a keen interest i nclothes ; 51 .2% were rather interested ; 38 .4% were not par-ticularly interested, and 2 .7% said they neglected theirdress . Despite the prevalance of relaxed attitudes, 67 .2%declared that clothing was an " acute " problem, and anothe r30 .1% said it was an " average " problem .

Holdings of basic garments are illustrated in table 22 .This suggests a distinct shortage (given the severe Russia nclimate) of such key garments as winter coats, fur hats an dlight coats . Indeed, some people could only have managed a tall by borrowing from relatives or friends . Holdings o fother items, some not illustrated, were at least adequate .Only a small proportion of the heavier garments was new, andmany were in a heavily worn or repaired condition . A fai rproportion of light coats, sweaters, fur hats and mackin-toshes were, it will be noted, purchased in second-handshops . Very few respondents admitted to accepting them a sgifts or hand-me-downs, practices perhaps more characteris-tic of the lowest and highest age groups .

25 Official figures showed that the supply of clothingincreased about two and a half times between the mid -sixties (when it was grossly inadequate) and 1980 . Thi spresumably meant easier purchase, less illegal pric einflation, and more second-hand availability . Stat eprices fell by a percentage point or two, while the ris ein the average wage must also have helped .

- 47 -

Table 22 : Active Male Wardrobe (per capita holdings of principal items )

ItemMedian numberowned not owning

Bought incommission

% of Respondents Heavil yany

wornNew,

o ras new

Winte rcoat 1 .01 22 .3 12 .4 2 .0

shop

4 . 4

Fur hat 1 .05 25 .4 29 .2 9 .9 23 . 8

Short/lightCoat 1 .24 12 .3 20 .0 15 .7 24 . 1

Mackintosh 1 .27 8 .8 10 .8 9 .9 17 . 0

Suit 2 .21 0 :0 5 .5 16 .7 7 . 7

Jacket 1 .51 5 .0 19 .6 14 .7 8 . 1

Trousers 2 .72 0 .0 10 .6 28 .1 3 . 1

Sweater 2 .03 6 .9 20 .5 15 .5 22 . 8

Pairs ofShoes 2 .78 0 .0 8 .9 16 .3 3 .5

4 9

The range of estimates of annual expenditure on clothe swas extended by a few completely disinterested individual sat one extreme and (it would seem) by fashion-seekers at th eother . However, some 95% of the above-mentioned male sub -group entered figures of between 25 and 170 roubles, with amean of 84 .9 roubles . This works out at about 7 roubles amonth, or 11 .5% of the average total income .

Section VI

SOCIAL MOBILITY

Social mobility is an extremely complex topic, and may b emeasured in many ways . Here we shall consider only fou rdimensions, all in the spheres of occupation and educationa lachievement . 26 They are : a) inter-generational mobilit ypatterns ; b) the movement of respondents during their work-ing years, as perceived by themselves ; c) difference sbetween spouses, in so far as they reflect social distance ,and d) respondent s ' views on the jobs most likely to lie atthe bottom of the occupational prestige hierarchy . 2 7

26 Our comments are limited to occupation and educatio nbecause comparisons of income -- another dimension com-monly analysed -- are less meaningful in the Soviet con -text . In any case, the income range of the sample wa sdeliberately restricted .

The seven occupational categories used in this sectio nare the same as those set out in table 6 .

Eight educational categories were distinguished : (1 )no education, (2) incomplete secondary education, (3 )complete secondary education, (4) PTU i .e ., low gradetechnical schools, (5) secondary special technica lschools, (6) part-time, or incomplete higher education ,(7) complete higher education, (8) post graduate educa -tion . A few persons engaged in evening and part-tim ecourses of casual nature were attributed to category 4 .

27 Social mobility, as reported by emigres, is another topi cwhich must be treated with caution . This is not becaus esuch accounts are likely to be less reliable than i nother respects, indeed, they may be very accurate . Theproblem is that any long-term plans which emigres had fora change in their own socio-economic status may have bee nmodified, much before the PNG, by the idea of departure ,without their fully realising it . In fact, though cautionis still apposite, the sample responses covering work ,earnings and other plans suggest that respondents wereonly marginally affected in this way .

- 50 -

5 1

Table 23 :

Intergenerational Mobility

(Occupation )

Male s

Son +2 categories

Workingparent

Retire dparent

Total %

or more 26 64 90 40 . 0

Son +1 6 15 21 9 . 3

Same as father 20 38 58 25 . 8

Son -1 6 10 16 7 . 1

Son -2 or more 10 30 40 17 . 8

Total,

males :

Females

68 157 225 100 . 0

Daughter + 2or more

17 45 62 49 . 6

Daughter +1 1 14 15 12 . 0

Same as mother 8 17 25 20 . 0

Daughter - 1

Daughter -2

3 7 10 8 . 0

or more 3 10 13 10 . 4

Total,

females : 32 93 125 100 .0

5 2

Table 24 :

Intergenerational Mobility

(Education )

MalesWorkingparent

Retiredparent

Total %

Son +2 categorie sor more 23 58 81 60 . 9

Son +1 23 2 25 18 . 7

Same as father 15 18 16 12 . 0

Son -1 4 3 7 5 . 3

Son -2 or more 4 0 4 3 . 0

Total,

males : 69 64 133 99 . 9

Female s

Daughter +2 70 27 97 63 . 0or mor e

Daughter +1 11 9 20 13 . 0

Same as mother 0 31 31 20 . 0

Daughter -1 1 1 2 1 . 3

Daughter - 2or more 1 3 4 2 . 6

Total,

females : 83 71 154 99 .9

6 .1

Inter-generational Mobilit y

A simple, schematised overview of movement between fathe rand son, mother and daughter, in the spheres of occupatio nand education is given in tables 23 and 24 . The numbers ar etoo small to justify subtle mathematical analysis, but eve nat this level of generalisation some interesting feature semerge . 2 8

28 Although we use the terms father/son, mother/daughter fo rdiscussion here, we are, of course, concerned with th eolder and middle generations, i .e ., grandparents and(normally) working parents, not the (generally under -aged) children . The relatively low rate of response t oquestions on intergenerational mobility was a littl e

5 3

As for occupation, movement into other categories wa sconsiderable for both sexes, only about a quarter of th emen, and a fifth of the women remaining in the same categor yas their parent of the same sex . Upward mobility was mor ecommon than downward mobility for both sexes . If downwar doccupational mobility is subtracted from upward mobility ,without reference to distance, we have a preponderance o f24 .9% upwardly mobile among men, and 43 .2% among women . Thefact that women appeared to be more upwardly mobile than me nmay be explained, at least in part, by the lower job-statu sof women in earlier decades, and increasing job opportuni-ties for them outside the household . The more detailedfigures suggest, logically enough, that the downwardl ymobile of both sexes tended to have parents in higher occu-pation categories (which were possibly harder for the off -spring to match) . The fact that higher occupations usuall ytake longer to enter does not invalidate this observation ,for most sample members were of an age to be well advance din their careers .

Upward mobility seems to have been even more marked i neducation, reflecting, of course, well-documented governmen tpolicies . Here only about an eighth of the men, and a fift hof the women, remained in the same category as their paren tof the same sex . Around 60% went considerably further, an dfew failed to match their parental achievement . The educa-tional levels registered by respondents are, for obviou sreasons, likely to be more definitive than are their occupa -tions . The overall picture, though resting on a smal lnumerical base, again indicates a plausible measure of posi -tive change .

disappointing, but could probably be explained in manyinstances by real ignorance of parents lost in the Secon dWorld War, by divorce, or illegitimacy . It is also pos-sible that some respondents were apprehensive abou tentering details of their parents in the questionnair edespite assurances of anonymity .

The simplicity of tables 23 and 24 should not distrac tattention from the complex movement behind them . They donot show, for example, the differing occupational andeducation structures in which each generation was placed ;how far change was personal, and how far due to " struc-tural" development ; whether change was greater in som eparts of the occupation and education structures than i nothers ; how rates changed over time, etc . Note also thatour categories were designed to distinguish between jo bgroups, rather than the lesser degrees of seniorit ywithin any given job .

5 4

The extent of downward occupational mobility is particu-larly interesting when viewed against the much smalle ramount of downward educational mobility . Although (to aver -age the sex differentials) only 3 .7% of the respondents hada lower educational achievement than their parent of th esame sex, 23 .7% were lower in occupational terms . Thus doe sthe growing discrepancy between the occupation structure an deducational achievement (long a topic of debate among Sovie tsociologists) express itself among low earners . Educationwould not appear, even in the longer term, to guarante eupward, or inhibit downward, occupational mobility .

6 .2

Intra-generational Mobilit y

When asked for an assessment of change in their own socia lstatus in the PNG and five years preceding it, none of th erespondents indicated a "marke d " improvement, and only 14 .0 %said there was some ." 75 .4% saw no particular change, o rhad difficulty in pronouncing on the matter ; 8 .6% perceive dsome deterioration, and 2 .0% - a marked deterioration .Generalization over the whole sample is precluded by th ediversity of age, sex and occupation : but a comparison o fthe first and last jobs of 108 respondents aged betwee nforty and fifty, who may be thought of as the first genera-tion to start a career after Stalin, revealed an equall ydisappointing pattern . "

A comparison of the occupations of sub-groups declarin gimprovement (62 cases) with those declaring deterioratio n(47 cases) provides no clear explanation for their differin gfates . In the absence of overriding social change, movementin each case may be due to the interplay of unique forces .Opportunities for promotion may sometimes be induced ; on theother hand, their mere presence may encourage competitiv eattitudes . Certainly, 61 .3% of the upwardly mobile showe dreal personal interest in professional advancement, a sagainst 36 .2% among the downwardly mobile . The former als ohad a stronger interest in administrative upgrading . Farmore of the " succeeders " had a positive estimate of thei rchances .

29 407 respondents from the BCSEP data bank completed thi ssection .

30 Eighty two of the 40-50 year-olds had in fact remained i nthe same category of post (as defined on our seven- grou pscale) throughout their career, and of the 26 individual swho changed, 15 moved up the scale, and 11 moved down it .

5 5

Table 25 : Reasons for Failure to Obtain Promotio n

VeryImportant

Important No tImportan t

22 .0 33 .0 45 . 0

19 .2 37 .9 42 . 9

14 .5 46 .5 39 . 0

6 .1 19 .4 74 . 5

3 .9 23 .9 72 . 3

3 .6 10 .8 85 . 6

2 .6 24 .0 73 . 4

2 .1 8 .8 89 . 1

1 .1 7 .7 91 .2

Respondents who had desired promotion, but not got it (a sdistinct from those who had, whether they desired it or not )were asked to assess possible hindrances . It would appearthat they had some difficulty in doing so, but the patter nwhich emerged is shown in table 25 . The only reasons com-monly thought to be important were anti-semitism, a lack o fskill, or of suitable jobs . Politics, it will be noted ,were almost discounted .

Although the years of rapid social change in the USSR ar elong past, it would still be possible to postulate a contin -uing and perceptible fall in the number of poverty-relate djobs, and a turnover among the people who did them . Further -more, some of the most obvious poverty-generating factor swhich plague other societies - like intense unemployment andlarge families - are not characteristic of Soviet Europea ntowns .

The survey results, however, indicate a substantia ldegree of stability among persons in low-paid jobs in th e

Reason s

Prevented fo rethnic reasons

Lack of educatio nor specialist skil l

No suitable job s

Prevented fo rpolitical reasons

Unwillingness to pro -mote a woman/mother o fa small chil d

Prevented fo rpersonal reason s

Family circumstance s

Health

Age

5 6

late seventies, contrasting markedly with th eintergenerational mobility which preceded it . In th eabsence of evidence to the contrary, this limited findin glends some support to the assertion that Soviet society ha sdeveloped its own poverty-trap . It is noteworthy that onl y3 .4% of the respondents believed it was easier for poo rpeople (compared with others) to better themselves in Sovie tsociety, as against 54 .8% who held the opposite view .

6 .3

Marriage Partner s

The selection of a marriage partner is as much an emotiona las a social act . Nevertheless, the occupational and educa-tional diversity of marriage partners remains, in the aggre -gate, a useful gauge of social mobility, even when ethni cconstraints (such as characterize our sample) are taken int oaccount .

Table 26 : Husband and Wife by Occupational and Educationa lCategories*

Occupation

Educatio n

N

%

N

%

Wife 4 ormore higher 10 3 .2 3 0 . 9

Wife 2- 3higher 46 14 .7 69 21 . 5

Wife 1higher 53 16 .9 56 17 . 4

Husband and wif ein same category 52 16 .6 103 32 . 2

Wife 1lower 61 19 .5 46 14 . 3

Wife 2- 3lower 60 19 .2 43 13 . 4

Wife 4 o rmore lower 31 9 .9 1 0 . 3

Totals 313 321

*As used in tables 23 and 24 .

5 7

The distribution of spouses by occupation and educatio ncategories is set out, using the same simplified form a shitherto in table 26 . With regard to occupation, choice o fpartners appears to have been fairly open . Although husband sshowed a marked disposition to marry someone in the same, o ran adjacent occupation group (53% of the couples were inthis type of union) 47% chose wives further away . At thesame time some imbalance may be perceived at the extremes o fthe distribution, insofar as the proportion of wives in jo bcategories higher than those of their husbands was muc hsmaller than that of wives with jobs in lower categories .This follows from the generally higher occupation ratings o fthe husbands .

The educational match, on the other hand, was different .Husbands were even more likely to take a partner from th esame or an adjacent category (63 .9%) : but in cases of grea tdiscrepancy a larger proportion of wives tended to be mor ehighly educated than their husbands . A comparison of thes eimbalances may indicate some career deprivation for the mor eeducated women, or a less insistent attitude towards one o ntheir part . Clearly, it would be wrong to leap to simplis-tic conclusions solely on this basis .

6 .4

Low-Prestige Job s

Given the reluctance of the Soviet authorities to permit an ysociological listing of poorly-paid jobs, we decided tha tthe opinions of the sample would be worth having . Thenature of the interview made it unwise, in our view, to as kfor scaled assessments, so we asked respondents to ente rwhat they thought to be the four least prestigious occupa-tions in the USSR, together with the probable wage rates .We made the simple assumption that the more often a job wa snamed, the less it was valued . In fact, the frequency dis-tribution of the 1638 entries was much more peaked than w ehad anticipated, indicating a considerable degree of consen -sus .

Table 27 lists occupations entered 12 times or more b yorder of frequency (giving a total of 1182 opinions )together with the range of suggested earnings and our esti-mated average wage . As may be seen, all of them wer ethought to be low-paid, and most fell into the 50-100 roubl erange . The detailed ordering of the entries is arguabl yless important than the general configuration, insofar as afew jobs which are less common, and came some way down th elist, could well be regrouped with similar ones higher u p(eg ., boiler-men are rather akin to laborers, and buffe tmanagers to waiters, etc) .

5 8

Table 27 : Low-Prestige Occupations, with Assessed Wag e

Likely Earnings *

Occupation N Range Average

Cleaner 273 55-90 70

Watchman 150 55-100 7 2

Unskilled Worker 134 50-100 7 8

Sweepers 96 50-120 7 2

Nurses (unskilled) 73 55-90 6 7

Loaders 69 60-100 7 8

Dishwashers 40 50-90 6 9

Cashiers 36 60-120 7 7

Checkers 35 60-100 7 6

Waiters 29 60-90 7 0

Lift Operators 25 50-80 6 4

Stokers 25 60-100 76

Packers 22 60-100 7 6

Couriers 20 60-80 6 7

Postmen 20 60-80 7 2

Bus Conductors 20 60-90 7 2

Taylors, Seamstresses 20 60-100 76

Warehouse Personnel 19 60-90 7 1

Nurses (skilled) 17 60-120 68

Laundrywomen 17 60-80 6 8

Horsecart Driver 16 60-80 6 9

Deliverymen 14 65-90 7 7

Stall Managers 12 60-80 7 1

N :

Number of responses

(1158)

* Roubles, monthly

5 9

Beyond this, the list speaks for itself . Nearly all o fthe jobs included were in the service sector, involvin gunskilled tasks like cleaning, carrying and guarding . Thi sphenomenon has, of course, received some mention in Sovie tsources, but the occupations have never (to our knowledge )been listed in detail . The fact that they are also amongthe least prestigious jobs in bourgeois society may be take nas a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of six decades o fegalitarian propaganda . It is, perhaps a little surprisingthat such occupations should be named by a group of peopl ewho, though mostly skilled, were themselves relatively poo rand underprivileged .

The few less menial jobs in the list deserve comment .Cashiers, waiters, and buffet managers may have bee nincluded on account of their known propensity for pilferingor theft . The same may have been true for checkers, packer sand storemen . Nurses evidently suffered from the low statu sofficially accorded to medical services . It is noteworthythat the only productive workers to appear, apart from gen-eral laborers (who came early in the list), were thos einvolved in garment-making . Given the low pay in somebranches of industry, one might well have expected to fin dother production jobs there as well . It would appear tha tany possible long-term improvement in the prestige of lead-ing industrial workers has not reached other manuals o rlow-grade service personnel .

Section VII

PERCEPTIONS OF POVERTY

To what do poor people in the USSR attribute poverty? I norder to elucidate opinions on this matter, the question-naire listed twenty six likely factors, divided into tw obroad groups ; those which might explain poverty as generall yobserved, and those which could account for hardship in th erespondent ' s own family . Respondents were asked to stat ewhether they considered each factor "very important, "" important, " or " unimportant, " with an extra option adde dfor indecision. The configuration of replies, shown i ntable 28, was much as might be expected . But there wer ealso one or two surprises .

The most potent general factor, thought to be important ,or very important, by 87% of the respondents, was alcoho-lism . The prominence of this explanation in the public mindprovides another indication of the extent of the evil . Th e" aftermath of the Second World Wa r " evoked a high response ,reflecting the profound impact of the tragedy (particularl yon the Jews) and the insistent projection of it in the offi -cial media . The economic failings thought to be most blame -worthy included the incorrect wage policies ; the absence o fmaterial incentive, which reduced desire to work ; highprices for consumer goods ; official neglect of agriculture ;and the emphasis on militarisation .

All of these factors are, of course, interrelated, an dmay exacerbate poverty in any industrialised society . I tis, however, curious that so many people should blame Sovie tforeign aid, (despite positive coverage in the media) an dalso geographical or climatic conditions . Conversely, rela-tively few people blamed temporary dysfunction of the eco-nomic system, genuine defence needs, or Russia ' s historica lbackwardness . The least mentioned (but not negligible )factor was hostility on the part of the West, though poten-tial emigres might be expected to return a low rating o nthis point . It would appear, incidentally, that our listin gwas thought to be fairly complete, because only 2 .5% of thesample found it necessary to add comment of their own .

The personal (or family) factors mentioned with greates tfrequency were excessive procreation, the choice of apoorly-paid trade or profession, and lack of education o r

- 60 -

6 1

Alcoholis m

The consequences of th ewar against Hitle r

Wrong government pol-icy regarding pay

Absence of materia lincentiv e

Unjustified high price sfor clothes, consume rgoods and service s

Neglect of agricultureby the authoritie s

Soviet aid to devel-oping countrie s

People ' s unwilling-ness to work, lower-ing productivit y

Geographic, climati cfactors, harvest andtransport failure

Official policy regard-ing armament s

Temporary dysfunctio nof a good economi cmechanism

A real need to streng-then national defenc e

Russi a ' s histori cbackwardnes s

Hostility of the West ,its unwillingness t otrade

VeryImportant Important

No tImportant

Can ' tSay

43 .9 43 .1 10 .8 1 . 5

37 .6 32 .6 17 .9 12 . 0

36 .2 45 .7 8 .8 9 . 3

35 .3 36 .7 23 .3 4 . 8

31 .0 63 .8 3 .8 1 . 3

30 .5 52 .0 5 .2 12 . 3

25 .1 61 .1 2 .9 10 . 8

22 .6 45 .0 26 .2 6 . 1

20 .8 55 .7 16 .1 7 . 5

20 .8 35 .3 19 .9 24 . 0

4 .3 30 .3 23 .5 41 . 9

4 .3 14 .9 41 .4 39 . 3

3 .3 14 .0 47 .1 35 . 8

1 .1 22 .6 42 .1 34 .1

Table 28 : Common Explanations for Povert y

GENERAL FACTORS

6 2

23 .8 51 .8 22 .4 2 . 1

20 .1 32 .1 35 .5 12 . 2

17 .9 19 .7 54 .5 7 . 9

2 .3 23 .3 67 .6 6 . 8

2 .5 14 .7 77 .4 5 . 5

1 .6 20 .4 67 .4 10 . 6

1 .4 6 .3 81 .0 11 . 3

2 .0 7 .9 83 .9 6 . 1

0 .2 5 .9 74 .9 19 . 0

0 .0 12 .4 79 .9 7 . 7

3 .2 5 .4 81 .7 9 . 7

3 .6 11 .5 79 .6 5 . 2

3 .6 1 .4 25 .6 69 .5

training . It is hardly surprising that respondents shoul dhave been unwilling to admit such failings as lack of initi-ative, or an inability to handle money . What is interest-ing, and speaks in favor of the socio-political "normality "of the sample, is the low rating accorded to the remainin gchoices . Few people'atzributed their material hardship to alack of desire to make a career in the USSR ; overt criticis mof Soviet power ; or a lack of interest in material things .Again, only a handful of respondents entered factors beyondthose listed .

PERSONAL FACTORS

Family siz e

Choice of a low -paid specialit y

Lack of a speciality ,or of educatio n

Unwillingness or in -ability to find extr aincome

Reasons of age o rhealt h

Hinderences to pro -motion at work

Lack of interest inmaterial thing s

Unwillingness to makea career in the USS R

Feckless handlingof family income

No known source sof extra income

Overtly critical atti-tude to Soviet powe r

Chance misfortune ,illnes s

Other persona lfactors

6 3

The degree to which people in the sample, given thei radmittedly low incomes, felt themselves to be poor i sanother aspect of the problem . Our sampling experience lef tno doubt that in the USSR the idea of poverty evokes neg-ative reactions familiar to people living in capitalis tsociety, and is a condition which even people critical o fthe regime are reluctant to admit . The interviewers foun dit desirable, for example, to avoid using the word " poor "when asking respondents about their life styles, and advise dits removal from the title of the questionnaire .

In their replies only 2 .3% of the sample admitted t obeing ' very poor ' , and another 20 .6% to being ' poor ' . Som e13 .1% thought they were not poor at all, regardless of thei radmittedly low income, while 63 .8% said they had either no tthought in those terms or had difficulty in replying .Respondents were asked to state whether, as a consequence o ftheir " low income, " they ever experienced a condescendin gattitude from officials . The responses here were " often"(3 .2%) ; " sometimes " (17 .8%) ; rarely, very rarely, or no tperceptibly, (72 .3%) . Opinions on whether the Soviet urbanpoor formed a separate social group were split almos tequally between those who thought they did, those wh othought they did not, and those who had no comment .

A further explanation for reluctance to admit unfavoura-ble distinction emerged when we sought opinions on th eextent of living conditions similar to the respondent s ' own ,as subjectively perceived . Nearly three quarters of themconsidered that between 20% and 80% of the populace share dtheir difficulties . 31 Moreover, when asked to estimate th eaverage wage in the late seventies, no less than 99% of th esample entered figures considerably lower than those offi-cially published, the median sample estimate being 129 rou-bles, against 163 .3 roubles in the 1979 official statistica lhandbook . Given the nature of Soviet statistics one migh thesitate to defend the latter . 3 2

31 Poverty in rural areas lay, of course, beyond the bound sof the study, but respondents who had been in a villag eduring the PNG or three years preceeding it were asked t ocompare living standards in the country with those in th etowns . Over half refrained from comment, but 10 .2%thought rural standards higher, 12 .3% thought them to bethe same, and 24 .6% thought they were lower, or muc hlower . Since peasants in most localities were desper-ately poor for decades, this assessment doubtlessl yreflected recent rises in their income .

32 It is apposite to note that the Narodnoe khozyaistv ofigures may not be quite what they seem . Soviet employee sare paid by the calender month . However, a prominentSoviet economist has stated that wage figures as pub-

6 4

It seems fairly clear from the pattern of replies thatmost people in the sample would admit to no clear-cut o rpervasive feeling of alienation . We incline to the opinionthat there is little, at least at the level of deprivatio nconsidered here . Although Soviet society is far from homo-geneous, it lacks the variety which pluralism, freedom o fexpression, and market forces promote . Soviet man may wel lfind that the shared experience of Soviet reality, to th eexclusion of any other, strengthens rather than weaken sfeelings of social cohesion .

Since all of our respondents had of necessity experience dlife in the USA or Israel, we asked whether they though t"material difficultie s " were easier to bear under capitalis mor socialism . The economic problems of resettlement would ,of course, have varied from one respondent to another, bu twe judged them widespread enough to justify a general ques-tion . As it was, 2 .9% thought such problems much easier ,and 10 .0% easier, to bear in the USSR, while 14 .0% sai dthere was little difference . The majority decision favour-ing deprivation of a capitalist variety was less decisiv ethan one might have expected .

Begging

No treatment of poverty in the USSR would be complet ewithout a few words on begging . This practice, so shamefu lin an avowedly socialist state, has received little or n oattention from analysts in the USSR or abroad . Casua lobservations made by our respondents, and their views on th e" ideal " beggar, are therefore not without interest .

45 .7% of the sample declared that they saw beggars fro mtime to time, the great majority of respondents reportin gbetween two and thirty sightings a year . Only one, however ,admitted to a personal acquaintanceship . The most commonlocations for begging were given as streets, suburban sta-tions, and cemeteries . Beggars were thought to be, in th emain, poorly educated, unskilled men, or elderly people o feither sex with little or no pension . Income estimate sranged between 20 and 40 roubles a month : however, 20% o fthe respondents entered figures of between 45 and 80 rou-bles, nigh enough to have unnerving implications for th echaracter of poverty in general . Begging, like unemploy-ment, finds no recognition in Soviet social securit y

lished in this source are recalculated to include holida ypay in non-holiday wage packets, thus inflating th e" monthly " figure by one twelfth (see V . Perevedentsev inZhurnalist, No . 8, 1974, p . 70) . I am grateful to Mr .Keith Bush for this reference .

6 5

legislation, and vagrancy, which is ill-defined, may b eprosecuted with some vigor .

The most common reason for begging, given by 35 .2% o fobservers, was physical incapacity, although 25 .7% named lowwages, and 23 .9% - drunkenness . Unemployment ranked verylow, being entered by only 2 .2% Interestingly, ten respon-dents, or 4 .3%, entered drug addiction, which may now b eapproaching observable levels . Beggars ' clothing wasassessed by nearly all who completed the entry as ' badlyworn ' or ' ragged ' ; only 4 .4% found it reasonable . The prac-tice adopted by some American beggars of donning a nice sui tso as to earn the pity of a more opulent clientele has ye tto find a place in Soviet reality .

Appendix A

NOTE ON THE RELIABILITY OF RESPONSE S

The difficulties of obtaining accurate facts from emigre sabout their life in the USSR are well known and require n omore than brief mention here . Information may be distorte dby a) the prevalence of negative attitudes to the very prin -ciple of Soviet power ; b) a biased perception of Sovie treality as experienced personally ; c) a tendency to exagger -ate former difficulties, so as to " open people ' s eyes " i nthe West ; d) conversely, a tendency to conceal difficultie sor experiences considered demeaning, or to exaggerate ben-efits lost by emigration ; e) the invention of answers which ,given the problems of access to the USSR, cannot be veri-fied ; f) loss of detail due to memory failure ; g) error ,technical carelessness, or intervention on the part o finterviewers and other helpers (clearly, personal attendanc eof an observer at each interview is rarely practicable i nsurvey work) .

While not denying the relevance of these difficulties, w ehave good reason to believe that they have not greatl yaffected the information assembled in these pages . Firstly ,the questionnaire was concerned almost entirely with matter sof daily life, and contained little of direct political o remotional impact . Secondly, the responses to several ques-tions suggested that few respondents suffered political o rracial discrimination sufficient to bias their judgement o nrelatively mundane matters . Exaggeration and distortio nwould arguably be less likely in the presence of interview-ers who were themselves brought up in Soviet Union, an dthought to have a balanced assessment of it . Our ownperusal of the survey results produced several reassuringinstances of identity between respondents ' information andfact deducible from other sources .

As for the problems of recollection, much of the detai lrequested was very familiar to respondents, and likely to b erecalled with reasonable accuracy . The time lag between th eyear described and interviewing was not great . Finally, w ehave good reason to trust the efforts of our interviewers .All were personally recommended to us and anxious to main -

- 66 -

6 7

tain opportunities for further employment ; most would gladl yhave done more interviewing, had suitable families beenavailable . No discrepancies suggesting carelessness o rmalpractice came to light .

All social surveys, no matter how carefully conducted o rchecked, tend to throw up puzzling or erratic responses, an dthe 790 interviews in our data banks are no exception . Th emost troublesome instances were traced and corrected, bu tthis still left a small residue we could well have don ewithout . They included, apart from unwanted silences, a fewcases of clearly untypical consumption ; unusual expenditure sor possessions ; a wide range of figures ; a few obviousl yabsurd opinions ; and (despite all efforts at erradication )some apparently erroneous replies . The difficulty and cos tof interviewing families which fitted our parameters pre-cluded the exclusion of whole cases on account of occasiona lblemish .

The problem has been dealt with in the most commonl yaccepted ways . Sometimes the wayward cases were statisti-cally insignificant, or fitted into the end categories o ffrequency distributions, where they did little harm . Whenthis did not happen our practice has been to exclude, wit hdue note, a few percentage points at each end of the distri -bution of responses, so that the pattern produced by th eremainder might be presented in a less encumbered manner .Given the nature of sociological analysis, and the circum-stances of the study, we consider this to be by and larg etolerable . Each response comprised only 0 .287% of al lresponses in data bank DDE0000 and 0 .226% of those in dat abank BCSEP . A handful of questions was added to the ques-tionnaire after systematic interviewing had been going o nfor some months, and when this occurred the reduced numbe rof respondents to whom they were addressed is indicated .

We are satisfied that the problems of data collection ,though palpable, were not serious enough to affect the gen -eral reliability of the conclusions set out below .

Appendix B

THE "KHRUSHCHEV " MINIMUM BUDGETS

69

1The"Khrushchev " Minimum Budget s

The Khrushchev leadership, fettered as it was with the publish-

ing taboos of the Stalin years, deserves credit for reopening the stud y

of family budgets, and allowing the academic fraternity to establis h

new subsistence minima . The implications of this work are considerabl e

and deserve particular attention at this point in the argument .

In the mid-fifties a number of research institutes, including

the Moscow Research Institute of Labour, the Institute of Food Studie s

of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Housing Institute of th e

Academy of Construction and Architecture, were instructed to assess an d

cost the basic consumption requirements of a contemporary urban family . 2

This involved both reexamination of studies done in the twenties, an d

new research . By 1958, as part of the framework of the 1959-1965 Seven-

Year Plan, several variants had been prepared . Some improved versions ,

together with an argued exposition of the calculations behind them ,

were finally published by the Soviet scholars G .S . Sarkisyan and N .P .

Kuznetsova in 1967 . This exposition attracted considerable attention

amongst analysts at home and abroad ; and it has not, as far as we ar e

aware, been superseded by anything further, despite the passage of s o

many years . Although not above criticism the budgets as published a s

can be used as a (albeit idealistic) yardstick, for the assessment o f

the poverty threshold in Soviet towns .

1Section from manuscript of my forthcoming book, "Poverty in the Sovie t

Union . "

2G .S . Sarkisyan and N .P . Kuznetsova, "Potrebnost ' i dokhod semii ,

uroven', struktura, perspektivy, " M, 1967, pp . 9, 11, 55, 139 .

7 0

The first variant covered the minimum monthly needs of a n

urban family comprising a husband, a wife, a 13-year-old boy and a n

8-year-old girl in the mid-sixties . It was costed, in terms o f

official parental earnings,with due allowance for state subsidie s

and services, at 51 roubles and 40 kopecks per head . We discusse d

this budget in another context many years ago : but it is reproduced ,

together with 'prospective ' and 'rational ' variants, in table 1 .

The new minimum budget was both ' European ' and 'Soviet ' in

orientation. Food purchases took up a relatively high proportion o f

outgoings (56%) ; housing and communal services, on the other hand ,

were costed at only 5 .4%, partly becasue they were state subsidized ,

and partly because provision was low . The tiny sums allowed fo r

furniture and household goods betokened spartan accommodation . No

outgoings were entered for medical and educational needs, as thes e

were provided free by the state : neither was there any provision fo r

saving . The budget contained unrealistically low figures for alcoho l

and tobacco consumption (2 .7%), while public spectacles and holida y

services were presumed to be almost free (which they were not) . The

inclusion of a nominal sum for 'membership fees ' reflected the exi-

gencies of life in a collectivist society . The budget, as proposed ,

specified a meagre level of provision within the officially accepte d

framework of Soviet reality . Its main inadequacies lay in ignoring an y

illegal payments made to obtain deficit goods, its lack of reference to

the higher prices charged in collective farm markets, and understatemen t

of certain common, culturally determined, expenditures, particularly on

alcohol .

7 1

Table(

1

THE ' KHRUSHCHEV' FAMILY BUDGET S

'Poverty'

'Prospective Poverty' 'Rational '

Roubles (%)

Roubles

(%)

Roubles (%)

Food, including 28 .8

55 .9

34.o

51

52 .5

34. 3bought meals

Clothing, foot- 10 .8

20 .9

13 .4

20 .1

33 .3

21 .7ware

Furniture ,

household goods1 .2

2 .6

2 .5

3 .8

7 .0

4. 6

Toiletries ofall kinds,

0 .7

2 .2

1 .2

1 .7

4.3

2. 8medicine s

Culturalgoods & sports

1 .1

1 .3

1 .2

1 .8

5 .6

3 . 6ware

Tobacco

0 .4

0 .6

0 .9

0.6

1 .4

2. 7Alcohol

2 .2

3 .4

. 5 .1

3 . 3

Expenditureson other goods & —

—

0 .2

0 .3

7 .0

4.5saving s

Sub Totals

44

85 .7

55 .1

82 .7

115 .6

75.4

Housing &Communal

2 .8

5 .4

3 .4

5 .1

6 .8

4 . 5Services

Holidays, various 0 .7

1 .4

3 .3

4.9

8 .7

5 .7service s

Cinema, theatre ,

other cultural 0 .9

1 .7

1 .4

2 .1

5 .2

3 . 4needs

Hairdressing,

1 .2

2 .3

—

—

—Baths, laundry

. Transport, post, 1 .2

2 .3

2 .5

3 .7

12 .0

7 . 7telegraph

Membership fees,

0 .7

1 . 0

0 .6

1 .2

5 .0

3 . 3Other expenses

0 .3

0 . 5

Sub Totals

7 .4

14.3

11 .5

17 .3

37 .7

24. 6

Totals

51 .4

100 .0

66 .6

100 .0

153 .3

100 .0

Source : Sarkisyan and Kuznetsova pp . 66, 125, 166 .

7 2

The costing of the necessities listed nevertheless raise d

embarrassing questions about the income levels of the day . In 196 5

the average wage, net of tax, was only about 89 roubles, or 178 rouble s

for two earners .1 However, a statistical family of two working adult s

and two children required an income of 205 .6 roubles (i .e ., 4 x 51 .4) to

reach the stipulated subsistence level . Sarkisyan and Kuznetsova's figure s

thus imply that by the mid-sixties even average earners among workers

and employees were still living in poverty, despite significant improve-

ments in living standards over the preceding decade . We have cautious-

ly suggested elsewhere, on the basis of Soviet sample data, that perhap s

a third of the urban working class, not usually the poorest sector o f

the community, was living below the 51 .4 rouble poverty threshold a t

that time . 2 The proportion of disadvantaged among low-grade service

personnel and the peasantry was certainly larger .

1The 1943 tax regulations, still by and large in force, stipulated pay-ments (for workers and employees) of 5 .9 roubles on the first 81 rouble searned, plus 12% of earnings between 81 and 100 roubles, plus 13% o fhigher sums . Changes have since been made in the starting point, an drelief has been granted to some categories of earners, but the main frame -work has remained unchanged . (V .V . Tur, ed ., " Spravochnik po nalogam i

sboram s naselenia, " M, 1968, p . 16) . The steady growth in wages hasmeant that people have been paying more tax . In fact, net incomes shoul dbe further reduced by a few roubles for trade union dues, and reflec tcommon sex differentials, but we ignore these matters at this point in

the argument .

2M . Matthews, Class & Society in Soviet Russia, Allen Lane, 1972 : pp .81 -

90 .

7 3

The " prospective" or 66 .6 rouble poverty budget, whic h

Sarkisyan and Kuznetsova also discussed in detail, is no les s

revealing. True, the authors carefully avoided saying when i t

could be implemented : Khrushchev, but a few years previously, ha d

cause to regret a precise dating for the advent of communism .

Their argument indicated, however, that they had set their sight s

on the seventies . The prospective budget would reflect the improved _

opportunities which "expanding production would bring for broaden-

ing the circle of minimally essential needs, whose satisfactio n

requires a higher family income". This curious formulation suggeste d

that the improved supply of goods and services would both promp t

and satisfy new expectations, which had to be reflected in improve d

minimal standards .

In fact the prospective budget, requiring a per capit a

income of 66 .6 roubles was but a modest advance on the current one .

As may be seen from the third and fourth columns of table 1, the die t

became a little more costly, but fell to 51% of total expenditure .

Expenditures on clothes and housing likewise increased somewhat i n

absolute terms, but diminished percentage—wise . This still left

a strong 'poverty' configuration . No separate provision was mad e

for hairdressing, public baths and laundry (the reasons being

unexplained) but there was a small entry for 'expenditures o n other

goods' and 'savings' . Prices were presumed to be stable .

Curiously, the biggest increases, proportionally, were for holidays ,

transport and communications, tobacco and vodka . Perhaps the

consumption of all of these items was thought to be unduly

restricted in the current minimum budget, so that some increase

7 4

could be permitted without negative consequences . In terms o f

relevance to the average wage, the prospective budget require d

two net incomes of 133 .2 roubles, which in fact about equalled the

gross average wage reached by 1976 .

Appendix C

OLD AG E PENSION S

7 6

Old Age Pensions 1

Any discussion of social security during the Brezhnev era mus t

begin with old age pensions .

Not only did these pensions take u p

the greater part of social security funding, but the modification s

they underwent reflected overall government thinking on stat e

maintenance in general . We shall comment primarily on eligibility

and minimal payments as being the matters most relevant to person s

in poverty .

The Khrushchev pension law of July, 1956 is as good a starting

point as any for analysis .

It effected a major revision and improve-

ment of regulations going back to 1928, while retaining certain

central principles . Thus it stipulated that old-age pensions were

payable as a right to 'workers and employees', and also servicemen ,

until death ensued.

(The peasantry, it will be noted, were not

mentioned.) .

Eligibility for a full pension started at the age o f

sixty for men, providing they had not less than twenty five years o f

service behind them, and fifty five for women, after twenty years o f

service .

These starting ages were, by international standards ,

relatively low .

A minimum of five years' service, including thre e

uninterrupted, immediately before retirement, was stipulated as a

condition of eligibility for a full pension . Any shortfall in the

regulatory 20-25 years of service brought a partial pension with a

proportional reduction in the rates payable . Persons formerly

See p .69 , footnote 1 .

7 7

receiving certain other types of pension had the right to switch t o

an old age pension if they thought it advantageous to do so .

The rate of 'full' pensions varied, with some exceptions, fro m

100;6 of the lowest wage bracket to 50% of the highest .

When apply-

ing for his pension, the employee was allowed to propose the year s

when he earned most, so as to obtain for himself the most advantageou s

possible rate .

No Soviet pension, incidentally, was subject t o

income tax (though most would automatically fall below the ta x

threshold) .

Lower starting ages, or augmentations were availabl e

for people in onerous jobs ; working invalids ; mothers of large

families ; persons with outstanding work records, and a few othe r

cases .

There were supplements of 10% for one dependant, and 1556 for

two or more . Rates for workers and employees living in rural area s

and involved in agriculture were, however, 15% below the urban norms .

A separate, but similar system of 'long-service', rather than 'old –

age' pensions was retained for military, academic, teaching and medica l

personnel . Applications for entitlement were normally handled by

commissions attached to the social security departments of local soviets .

The tie between pension rights and regular employment in a

state (or cooperative) organisation naturally posed a problem fo r

persons whose work record was interrupted or incomplete . The pension

then payable was commensurate with the years of service, subject to a

minimum pension of one quarter of the full rate . The least fortunat e

pensioners could therefore receive a rate as low as 11 roubles and 2 5

kopecks . 11 The Soviet authorities have never recognised the concept

7 8

of 'national assistance', i .e . maintenance payments based on solel y

assessed need, so inadequate pensions could not be supplemented i n

this manner. A minority of housewives, mothers and persons o f

unusual background, for example, who might not ever have had a forma l

job, and seemed likely to fall in this category, clearly had a n

interest in justifying their lack of state-employed status by vali d

medical or family circumstances, so as to qualify for payments o f

other types . Able-bodied people who earned a living by contractua l

work, private practice, and permitted handicrafts were formally out -

side the state system .

Access to pension rights in this case wa s

made dependent on the declaration of taxable income, regardless o f

source, and pensions were set at 50% of this income, taken on a

yearly basis ,

The main changes in the provision of pensions between 1956 an d

1979 contained a mixture of positive and negative features . Under

the 1956 law the minimum pension was set at 30 roubles a month, whic h

more or less equalled the September, 1956 minimum rates of pay fo r

workers and employees (i .e . 27-35 post-1961 roubles, depending on typ e

of work and locality) . This minimum remained in force until June ,

1971, when it was suddenly hoisted to 45 roubles .

So great an

elevation was to be welcomed, as it betokened a big improvement in th e

living standards of the poorest pensioners .

At the same time it pose d

two questions, which, as far as we are aware, have never been properl y

answered .

One may well ask, firstly, why the rise was so abrupt ,

after fifteen years of stability .

It would surely have been faire r

to increase the rate gradually, as funds became available . Secondly,

7 9

the new minimum was now significantly below the current minimum wage

(set at 70 roubles), which casts grave doubt on its adequacy .

The 45-rouble minimum itself lasted a decade, being raise d

only in January, 1981 to a modest 50 roubles .

In relative term s

it had fallen from 36% to 26% of the average wage over a decade ,

leaving the urban pensioner with an income slightly below the old ,

1967 family-based poverty threshold . Given the Brezhnev leader-

ship's much-publicised concern with living standards, its record in a

matter so easy to manipulate was thus most disappointing .

Furthermore, the standard provisions concerning length o f

service, and the percentages of pensions payable for dependents ,

remained unchanged . A new pension law promulgated in August, 197 2

was designed more to systematise post-1956 rulings than to effec t

significant improvements . The most noteworthy changes effecte d

subsequently (in February 1976 and June, 1977) involved raisin g

maximum pensions to 140-160 roubles for some personnel in the mor e

arduous sectors of mining and metallurgy .

a