Peculiarities of the underclass in Ukraine

Authors

  • О. В. Струченков Makiyivka Institute of Economics, Ukraine

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18524/2304-1439.2016.3(26).118854

Keywords:

underclass, poverty, marginalization, lower class

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of the underclass in Ukraine. The analysis of the scientific literature and results of sociological researches can lead to the following conclusions. The marginalization of a considerable part of the population and a situation with permanent poverty caused the formation of the underclass in Ukraine. The structure of the underclass is different: elderly people, unemployed, people with addictive and asocial behavior (drug addicts, alcoholics, sex workers, homeless), separate ethnic minorities (Gypsies). All of them make 11–14 % of the population that is three times more than in the USA and Western Europe.

Quite numerous categories of the poor working people in Ukraine don’t fit the underclass. The underclass includes all people who haven’t found or have lost the place in the social structure of the society. All of them are deprived from the main types of the capital: economical, cultural, social, human, symbolical. Most of representatives of the underclass have no higher education; they live in towns and villages, i.e. in areas with backward and depressed economy. But unlike the western countries Ukrainian underclass doesn’t live in the isolated city ghettoes.

The underclass is characterized by the dependant and the paternalistic moods. But the small rate of the hardship allowance in Ukraine makes many people have at least an unstable side job. Social passivity, apathy, low level of participation in political life and supports of democratic values is the characteristic features of the underclass. But the underclass takes an active part in any conflicts; it is ready to support any political slogans if it is associated with the satisfaction of the material requirements.

Author Biography

О. В. Струченков, Makiyivka Institute of Economics

Struchenkov O. V.

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Published

2016-12-25

Issue

Section

SOCIAL MECHANISMS OF TRANSFORMED SOCIETIES: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCHES