Understanding Poverty in Georgia

Author(s): Alexi Gugushvili
Editor(s): Iris Kempe, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Lili Di Puppo
Series: Caucasus Analytical Digest (CAD)
Issue: 34
Pages: 15-18
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Resource Security Institute (RSI), Arlington; Heinrich Böll Foundation, Tbilisi; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen
Publication Year: 2011

Over the last two decades, the profile of the poor has been evolving in Georgia, but the poverty level has remained consistently high. If the official subsistence minimum is taken as the poverty line, slightly more than two-fifths of the population is poor according to the latest estimations. Arguably, persisting high poverty levels can be explained by jobless economic growth and low agricultural productivity. The institutionalization of a targeted social assistance scheme has yet to demonstrate its efficacy. Instead of using perverse estimates of relative poverty, the government should acknowledge deprivation as the major challenge for the country and must more eagerly attempt to cure its root causes - inappropriate human capital and narrow labor markets.

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