The Czech Context
POLIS: Podpora sociálně - integračních politik a služeb
The Czech Context
Social Exclusion
Horizontal Poverty
The problem of social exclusion is relatively new to the Czech society and was virtually unknown before the 1989 'Velvet Revolution' and the consequential political changes and economic restructuring. In the egalitarian socialist-state society, poverty was mostly confined to its 'old' (demographic or horizontal) form which tends to affect people in specific phases of their life-cycle, especially in childhood, when starting a family and after retirement. Thus, demographic poverty can be said to touch most of the population, but only temporarily, individually and in particular demographic situations. Nevertheless, there already was a population segment living in long-term poverty, although considerably less numerous than in the present and unrecognised by the authorities in accordance with the official policy. This segment included mostly families with many dependent children, female-headed households, lone retirees, persons with disability and socially marginalized individuals such as alcoholics or ex-prisoners.
Vertical Poverty and the Social Exclusion concept
These forms of poverty haven’t disappeared after the demise of Socialism in 1989, not least due to the fact that Czech society remains more egalitarian in terms of income than established Capitalist societies. However, 'new' or vertical poverty has been brought along by the political and economic shift and from 1989 onwards its relevance was steadily rising. Vertical poverty is linked to social status, persists in time and tends to be spatially concentrated. The position in the labour market ranks among the most decisive factors here. The conception of new poverty differs from the traditional one also in that it considers other than material dimensions of poverty, more specifically its social, economic, cultural, political and symbolic dimensions. Poverty is interpreted as a dynamic phenomenon and the social processes which determine it and which it induces are analysed. The ability of an individual to participate effectively in various domains of social interaction becomes relevant to this conceptualisation. The level of his or her share on the distribution, redistribution and consumption of material as well as immaterial assets (such as political power, instruction, legal rights etc.) is therefore of interest. In this sense, the notions of vertical poverty and social exclusion naturally tend to be found together.
Social exclusion is a process in which an individual or a group is denied access to the resources indispensable for participation in social, economic and political life of society. We understand it as a general term encompassing multiple aspects and mechanisms of exclusion, such as spatial, economic, symbolic, social (in a more specific sense), political and cultural, and eventually as the phenomena of exclusion from access to specific institutions, services and assets, such as health care, decent housing, legal services etc. From all this the complex nature of its causes is hopefully obvious enough – material poverty is but one of them, with discrimination, low education level, lack of social skills and the like being equally important. Likewise, the visible consequences of social exclusion are multiple, intertwined and synergistically strengthening each other. Socially excluded people tend to live concentrated in ghettos in which social problems (long term unemployment, low education levels, poor housing quality, lack of access to social services, 'culture of dependence' and 'culture of poverty') and pathologies (criminality, usury, drug abuse and drug commerce, prostitution, domestic violence) gradually accumulate and worsen. The concept originated in France in the 1970s and has been used extensively in European policy papers throughout the last two decades.
The Factors of Social Exclusion and Marginalised Groups in the Czech Republic
As noted above in the discussion of the so-called 'Laeken indicators' of social exclusion, for the time being we don’t dispose of any quantitative data on the number and structure of socially excluded inhabitants of the Czech Republic which would be fully comparable to the data for EU-15. However, the number of socially excluded in the Czech lands can be safely estimated at tens of thousands. In terms of income poverty, the Czech Republic is classifiable as a country with a low level poverty rate. Figures from the 2002 Microcensus, which was conducted by the Czech Statistical Office, show that 8% of people were living below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold (the income poverty line) which was, according to EU methodology, defined as 60% of the national median equalised income per equivalent adult. It is noteworthy that there was a relatively high concentration of people just above the threshold – another 8% had incomes between 60% and 70% of the national equalised median income. This same survey found that the groups of people who were most at risk of classification as poor were:
As the causes of material poverty and economic inequality can be to a certain extent associated with causes of social exclusion, those especially vulnerable to exclusion are individuals and groups which fall into more than one of these categories. Probably most outstanding of such groups are the Roma who tend to be overrepresented between the unemployed, undereducated and poor. Socio-cultural dimensions of their relationship with the majority population renders their exclusion patterns specific. Historically, they were geographically concentrated by the Socialist state in some of the most impoverished borderland regions. Many of them still experience racial discrimination from their potential employers and state officials. The children traditionally represented a striking amount of pupils in the so-called 'special schools' or 'remedy schools', originally intended for mentally retarded children and providing only the most basic education. Even though the special schools were abolished in the recent school reform, the ghetto schools with a high proportion of Romani children go on delivering much the same education as before. Such instruction almost absolutely precludes any possibility that the children continue in higher education and get any but menial jobs in the future. The segregated ghettos are located both on the outskirts and in the inner-cities of many Czech towns. Their expanse ranges from a single block of flats to whole quarters. These neighbourhoods are especially large and conspicuous in cities such as Ústí nad Labem, Most, Chomutov (all in the Ústí nad Labem Region), Sokolov (in the Carlsbad Region) and Ostrava (the Moravian-Silesian Region), but can be found in some way in most of the larger settlements – these localities show characteristics already hinted at above. Most of their inhabitants face complex and, by their own means, unsolvable problems. They are undereducated, unemployed for long periods of time and dependent on welfare transfers. Their access to social services and health care can be complicated and they often seem to live in 'law-free' zones. They seek alternative economic opportunities, which often lead to criminal activities. Usury is especially prevalent in the Romani population, which only deepens the already acute indebtedness of its victims. Poor housing conditions are not helped by an ambiguous interpretation of the role to be played by the existing municipal housing fund, especially as regards its social function since the social housing concept is yet to be implemented into the Czech legal system. These factors have led to decreasing capacities of the housing facilities for socially weak people in the process of privatisation in many Czech cities. Excluded people are ordinarily forced out illegally and semi-legally from lucrative localities, sometimes in cooperation of municipalities with private owners.
The problem of social exclusion is relatively new to the Czech society and was virtually unknown before the 1989 'Velvet Revolution' and the consequential political changes and economic restructuring. In the egalitarian socialist-state society, poverty was mostly confined to its 'old' (demographic or horizontal) form which tends to affect people in specific phases of their life-cycle, especially in childhood, when starting a family and after retirement. Thus, demographic poverty can be said to touch most of the population, but only temporarily, individually and in particular demographic situations. Nevertheless, there already was a population segment living in long-term poverty, although considerably less numerous than in the present and unrecognised by the authorities in accordance with the official policy. This segment included mostly families with many dependent children, female-headed households, lone retirees, persons with disability and socially marginalized individuals such as alcoholics or ex-prisoners.
Vertical Poverty and the Social Exclusion concept
These forms of poverty haven’t disappeared after the demise of Socialism in 1989, not least due to the fact that Czech society remains more egalitarian in terms of income than established Capitalist societies. However, 'new' or vertical poverty has been brought along by the political and economic shift and from 1989 onwards its relevance was steadily rising. Vertical poverty is linked to social status, persists in time and tends to be spatially concentrated. The position in the labour market ranks among the most decisive factors here. The conception of new poverty differs from the traditional one also in that it considers other than material dimensions of poverty, more specifically its social, economic, cultural, political and symbolic dimensions. Poverty is interpreted as a dynamic phenomenon and the social processes which determine it and which it induces are analysed. The ability of an individual to participate effectively in various domains of social interaction becomes relevant to this conceptualisation. The level of his or her share on the distribution, redistribution and consumption of material as well as immaterial assets (such as political power, instruction, legal rights etc.) is therefore of interest. In this sense, the notions of vertical poverty and social exclusion naturally tend to be found together.
Social exclusion is a process in which an individual or a group is denied access to the resources indispensable for participation in social, economic and political life of society. We understand it as a general term encompassing multiple aspects and mechanisms of exclusion, such as spatial, economic, symbolic, social (in a more specific sense), political and cultural, and eventually as the phenomena of exclusion from access to specific institutions, services and assets, such as health care, decent housing, legal services etc. From all this the complex nature of its causes is hopefully obvious enough – material poverty is but one of them, with discrimination, low education level, lack of social skills and the like being equally important. Likewise, the visible consequences of social exclusion are multiple, intertwined and synergistically strengthening each other. Socially excluded people tend to live concentrated in ghettos in which social problems (long term unemployment, low education levels, poor housing quality, lack of access to social services, 'culture of dependence' and 'culture of poverty') and pathologies (criminality, usury, drug abuse and drug commerce, prostitution, domestic violence) gradually accumulate and worsen. The concept originated in France in the 1970s and has been used extensively in European policy papers throughout the last two decades.
The Factors of Social Exclusion and Marginalised Groups in the Czech Republic
As noted above in the discussion of the so-called 'Laeken indicators' of social exclusion, for the time being we don’t dispose of any quantitative data on the number and structure of socially excluded inhabitants of the Czech Republic which would be fully comparable to the data for EU-15. However, the number of socially excluded in the Czech lands can be safely estimated at tens of thousands. In terms of income poverty, the Czech Republic is classifiable as a country with a low level poverty rate. Figures from the 2002 Microcensus, which was conducted by the Czech Statistical Office, show that 8% of people were living below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold (the income poverty line) which was, according to EU methodology, defined as 60% of the national median equalised income per equivalent adult. It is noteworthy that there was a relatively high concentration of people just above the threshold – another 8% had incomes between 60% and 70% of the national equalised median income. This same survey found that the groups of people who were most at risk of classification as poor were:
- unemployed people (36%);
- other economically inactive people (13%);
- single-parent families with at least one dependent child (30% of all people living in these households are mostly lone, divorced and single women with children);
- households with three and more children (20%).
- gender – the rate of unemployed women in 2003 was 9.9% as compared to 6.2% of men. Especially older women were likely to be lesser educated and qualified then their male counterparts, although in the younger generations this imbalance is continually being lessened. As was already noted, female-headed households represented one of the groups most at risk of poverty, which is most often due to the gender inequalities existing within households. To conclude, Czech women are at a higher risk of poverty than men and the difference between genders tends to increase with age.
- low education and qualification
- age – according to the general trend, the education levels tend to increase in every subsequent generation which worsens the handicap of older people in the labour market. The young applicants in the 15-24 age category are another group with problematic employability.
- region - the restructuring of the national economy resulted in growing regional disparities in terms of economic performance. The lowest unemployment levels are found in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic (4% in 2003), whereas high levels persist especially in the Moravian-Silesian and Ústí nad Labem regions (16.8% and 17.9%, respectively). Particularly problematic are the Northern and North-Western borderlands. In these regions, industries such as mining, iron, steel etc. have been declining from 1989 on. The worst values of the standard of living indicators were repeatedly found here.
- international migration – immigrants are subject to a broad range of problems in their attempts to integrate. The nature of these depends on the legal status and length of their residence, the language barrier, their cultural origin, their education level etc. Multicultural curriculum is only being incorporated into the Czech school system. At present, foreigners make up more than 3% of the labour force and their population is expected to rise. The numbers of illegally employed foreigners in Czech territory supposedly increases as well but is difficult to estimate.
As the causes of material poverty and economic inequality can be to a certain extent associated with causes of social exclusion, those especially vulnerable to exclusion are individuals and groups which fall into more than one of these categories. Probably most outstanding of such groups are the Roma who tend to be overrepresented between the unemployed, undereducated and poor. Socio-cultural dimensions of their relationship with the majority population renders their exclusion patterns specific. Historically, they were geographically concentrated by the Socialist state in some of the most impoverished borderland regions. Many of them still experience racial discrimination from their potential employers and state officials. The children traditionally represented a striking amount of pupils in the so-called 'special schools' or 'remedy schools', originally intended for mentally retarded children and providing only the most basic education. Even though the special schools were abolished in the recent school reform, the ghetto schools with a high proportion of Romani children go on delivering much the same education as before. Such instruction almost absolutely precludes any possibility that the children continue in higher education and get any but menial jobs in the future. The segregated ghettos are located both on the outskirts and in the inner-cities of many Czech towns. Their expanse ranges from a single block of flats to whole quarters. These neighbourhoods are especially large and conspicuous in cities such as Ústí nad Labem, Most, Chomutov (all in the Ústí nad Labem Region), Sokolov (in the Carlsbad Region) and Ostrava (the Moravian-Silesian Region), but can be found in some way in most of the larger settlements – these localities show characteristics already hinted at above. Most of their inhabitants face complex and, by their own means, unsolvable problems. They are undereducated, unemployed for long periods of time and dependent on welfare transfers. Their access to social services and health care can be complicated and they often seem to live in 'law-free' zones. They seek alternative economic opportunities, which often lead to criminal activities. Usury is especially prevalent in the Romani population, which only deepens the already acute indebtedness of its victims. Poor housing conditions are not helped by an ambiguous interpretation of the role to be played by the existing municipal housing fund, especially as regards its social function since the social housing concept is yet to be implemented into the Czech legal system. These factors have led to decreasing capacities of the housing facilities for socially weak people in the process of privatisation in many Czech cities. Excluded people are ordinarily forced out illegally and semi-legally from lucrative localities, sometimes in cooperation of municipalities with private owners.
