Welfare in Transition: Trends in Poverty andWell-being in Central Asia

This paper examines the impact of the transition from a planned toa market economy on living standards and welfare in the fiveRepublics of former Soviet Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, along with the Republicof Azerbaijan. A broad definition of welfare is taken and theindicators of well-being discussed are not limited to standardeconomic measures of poverty based on incomes or expenditures,but also include trends in selected capability-based indicators –reflecting the health and education of the population and theextent to which the social sectors are faring under increasingmarketisation; demographic-based measures – reflecting individualand household expectations and perceptions about the future; andsocio-environmental indicators – reflecting the social environmentwithin which people live.The picture that emerges is of a regional population facingsevere economic, physical and psycho-social stress. Over half thepopulation is now living in poverty. Real wages have fallen,joblessness has increased, school enrolment has dropped andgeneral health has deteriorated. In addition to exacerbating thedisadvantage of the ‘old poor’ – pensioners, families with largenumbers of children and single parent families – the economicdislocation of transition has also given rise to new groups of poor,including the families of workers ‘on leave without pay’, the longtermunemployed, agricultural workers, young people in search oftheir first job, and a growing number of refugees, both economicrefugees and persons displaced as a result of civil conflict.[...]