Why romania is poor

They often live in dangerous and unstable areas such as caves and are not considered to be Romanian citizens by the public. This, of course, does not include those who are ashamed of unemployment or are too afraid to acknowledge their own discrimination.

This is a way that anyone can help alleviate financial distress and fight the causes of poverty in Romania. Photo: Pixabay. Laws have to be more predictable, and SOEs more competitive. The poor, most of whom live in rural areas, remain disconnected from the drivers of economic growth: half of the poorest 40 percent of Romanians do not work, while another 28 percent live off subsistence agriculture.

One in five rural people lack access to potable water, and a third live without access to a flush toilet. The Roma, a minority group, face especially difficult circumstances, with an employment rate of just 28 percent and a poverty rate approaching 70 percent. Romania remains one of the least urbanized countries in the EU: a large number of poor people—75 percent of the population—live in rural areas.

Less than 2 percent of the population has moved in the past five years, likely the result of poor skills and misguided policies.

One in five kids drops out of school—among the highest dropout rates in the European Union. A combination of relatively generous maternity benefits and lack of part-time jobs has had the unintended effect of keeping women out of the labor force. Whether they are in or outside the labor force, entrenched gender norms continue to place the entire burden of caring for children and the elderly on women.

The transition to more productive jobs has been sluggish. Many workers are trapped in low-productivity farming and other informal activities, leading to both underutilization and misallocation of labor.

Social spending is low, at But it is also inefficient, becoming increasingly skewed towards pensions for the elderly. And it is becoming less targeted: with low and falling pension coverage in rural areas, public resources will be diverted away from the rural poor.

The provision of social services for social protection, employment, education and healthcare is fragmented and sparse, especially in rural areas where the needs and the economic benefits are greatest.

So, what are the reasons behind the lack of shared prosperity in Romania? Many people in Romania also feel that public policies are crafted and captured by vested interests, and that the reforms undertaken to enter the EU were skin-deep and did not address systemic problems.

With all of these contradictions, can Romania still be proud of its past achievements? Looking back, the answer is certainly yes. We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. Thirty years after the fall of communism, many Romanians are still looking for a way out of systemic poverty.

Many politicians, however, have ignored the topic in the runup to Sunday's parliamentary election. Roughly 6 million Romanians — about a third of all citizens who still reside in the country — live under the constant threat of poverty and social exclusion. Steve and his family, who live in the capital, Bucharest, have an indoor bathroom but no running water.

Electricity comes from the next-door neighbor. They live in a palatial old villa in the historic city center, but like many buildings here the plaster is falling off the walls, the windows are all broken and all of the doors are missing handles — they can only be closed if slammed shut.

It's early winter, and a cold wind races through every room. Someone brought the family a wood stove a while back, and Steve's 5-year-old grandson keeps it stoked throughout the day. Steve and his family of four children aren't officially registered at this address; as far as the authorities are concerned, the house has been vacant for more than a year. Steve comes from a small village in southern Romania. I have been living here in the capital since We did our best to have children and start a family," he says.

For 13 years, the couple and their children were allowed to squat in an abandoned old house with the owner's permission. But when it was eventually sold, the new owners had the place torn down. The lot that it stood on is still empty. When Steve was told that they'd have to leave, he applied for social housing. We were never registered there. All hope suddenly vanished," he says. I just gave up. Today, Steve is scared city officials will show up with masked police and evict his family from their ramshackle tenement because they aren't legal residents.

How could someone just take them away? People in Steve's situation instinctively try to hide from authorities, explains Irina Zamfirescu, a human rights activist in Bucharest.

Zamfirescu has been studying the phenomenon of precarious living conditions for close to a decade. Zamfirescu says officials often threaten to take people's children away if they resist eviction, giving people the impression that social workers are there to serve the mayor, not the citizens. Steve has never had an official job. I was a roofer, a painter, whatever they needed.

When there's no work, we live from what we can find on the street. We collect paper, bottles, anything. When Steve is working, he leaves the house at around 3 a. He makes a quick fire so it's warm for the kids when they get up, and he leaves a little money on the table so they can buy some juice and something to eat. On Sunday, Romanians will vote in a parliamentary election, and the eradication of poverty should have been at the core of each party's national agenda.

But three decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, poor Romanians have neither found a place in electoral campaigns nor a voice in government. Their votes are often purchased with a bag of groceries and empty populist slogans — full of promises never intended to be kept.