IEA

Fellowship from October 2009 to June 2010

Research project : "Poverty and social welfare. Individual and collective survival strategies"

"Since the late 1980s, the countries of the "socialist camp" have entered a period of profound socioeconomic changes that have resulted, according to cases and in extremely different ways according to countries, in the emergence of new social problems or aggravation of existing problems, including one of the most critical, that of poverty.
The labor market, the structure and resources of income have changed dramatically, unemployment has become a massive fact, the differentiation between income and wages has increased. This raises questions about the nature and definition of poverty in various former socialist countries, we can try to see how the proportion of poor families varies in the population and its structure according to the definitions adopted, by what means families belonging to groups at risk of poverty survive, what strategies they adopt.
It seems that a comparative sociological study of groups at risk in different countries of the former politico-economic area should be very instructive, not only on the current situation and impact of the political path taken from the society of different countries today, but also on the economic, social, political and cultural differences partially masked by the similarity of the past regimes. It would also study whether, despite the obvious differences between countries that have integrated the European Union and countries rejected in underdevelopment, we can find similar phenomena explicable by the common socialist past. Such a study could also look at projects developed by international agencies (World Bank and European Union programs TACIS) on these issues of fighting against poverty and at social policies in European countries and especially in France, as factors of influences or models to which East countries are moving.

Biographical elements:

Lidia Mikhailovna Prokofyeva was born in Moscow in 1948. In 1973, she completed her studies at the Institute of Economic and Statistical Moscow (MESI), specialized in social and demographic statistics. Since then, she is a researcher at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (after 1991 - the Academy of Sciences of Russia): first at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics (1973-1988), then at the Institute of socio-economic population (1988-present).
Her main research topics are:
- The sociology of the family. In 1984 Lidia Prokofyeva defended her thesis "Life cycles of families and evolution of their living conditions (longitudinal and transverse analyze)" (PhD).
- Evolution of family structures in Russia - single parent families, large families. The problems of families after divorce (two surveys of divorced men and women in the 90s).
- Poverty and groups at risk. Methodology of the definition of poverty (monetary and non monetary methods), socio-demographic profile of poverty.
- Social policy in Russia. The public policies to fight against poverty.
- Family support in Russia - individual and collective strategies of survival.
Lidia Prokofyeva is currently research director of the Institute of socio-economic population (ISEPN) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.