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CROATIA. SOCIAL EXCLUSION, POVERTY AND IMIGRANTS. The term “social exclusion“ first appeared in Croatian specialist publications in the mid-1990s , and since then has gradually been making its way into scientific and political discourse .
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CROATIA SOCIAL EXCLUSION, POVERTY AND IMIGRANTS
The term “social exclusion“ first appeared in Croatianspecialist publications in the mid-1990s, and sincethen has gradually been making its way into scientific and political discourse. • The term “social exclusion“ is most frequently used in describing theposition of certain social groups, such as the poor,the unemployed, young people, or the Roma.
In Croatia, groups with the highest relative povertyrisk include: • 1. Single-person households, • 2. Unemployed people, • 3. Families consisting of one adult with one or more • children (single-parent families), • 4. People with a lower level of education • 5. Elderly people (aged 65 or over)14, • 6. Pensioners, • 7. Couples with three or more children, • 8. Couples with one child, • 9. Children and young people (aged 0-24).
Setting out from the EU’s official poverty line, we find that 17% to 18% of Croatia’s population has been living in poverty during the last several years.
The view taken by many in Croatia is that the term“exclusion“ covers more than the term “poverty“.Poverty refers mainly to a lack of material or monetaryresources, and policy on poverty focuses on the reallocationof budgetary funds (i.e. addressing incomebasedpoverty). In contrast to poverty, exclusion impliesmore than a lack of money or material goods – italso covers social, cultural, political and other dimensions,meaning that better access to institutions andother mechanisms of social integration is a prerequisitefor the success of policies tackling exclusion.
Compared with most EU countries, Croatia has asomewhat higher poverty rate. The rateof poverty in southern European countries and inIrelandis almost identical to that in Croatia. • On theother hand, poverty rates in Denmark, Germany, theNetherlands, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, the CzechRepublic and Slovakia are lower than Croatia’s by atleast half. Inequality indicators can help us to explainthese differences in poverty rates among individualcountries, since relative poverty lines depend directlyon the level of income inequality in a given society.Many consider relative poverty lines to be measuresof inequality, rather than of poverty.
Generally speaking, young people are in a less favourablesocial and economic position than other agegroups, since they do not possess property (property,savings, shares) and have more difficulty finding employmentor a place to live. In Croatia there are twokey causes for the exclusion of the young: an unstableposition on the labour market, and dropping out of theeducational system.
In general, poverty for young people means dependency on their parents, family problems, alcohol and drug consumption, and delinquency. Ratio between youth unemployment (15 – 24 years of age) and the national average in Croatia andselected European countries (2000)
Minority groups encounter the risks of social exclusionmore frequently. • This applies to minority ethnicgroups, among whom the Roma represent the mostmarkedly marginalized population. Although Croatia,when compared to other countries, does not havea large Roma community, its members experienceexclusion in almost every area of social life. Accordingto the 2001 census, there are fewer than 10,000 Romain Croatia, while estimates from the Council of Europesuggest a number three to four times larger. It is characteristicof the Roma to conceal their national identity(national mimicry) as a legacy of the persecution,discrimination, segregation and exclusion that theRoma have been subject to for centuries.
As in other countries, the Roma in Croatia are evermore frequently described as an “underclass“, that is,a socially isolated group with very few prospects offinding its place in the new distribution of labour or ofsecuring “normal“ jobs, income, housing, social security,or access to better education for their children. • Poverty in Croatia is concentrated in Roma communities, which are drastically dependent on State benefits(culture of dependency) and which contain a largeproportion of those who are excluded from the labourforce and who tend to abandon the educational process.
Protest by non-Roma parents At the beginning of the academic year 2001/02, the parents of non-Roma children organized a protest ina school and refused to allow Roma children to enter. According to the European Roma Rights Center’s(ERRC) report, “more than 60% of Roma children in schools in the County of Međimurje, and in one schoolin the County of Varaždin, attend separate classes… and the curriculum itself, on which the educationof the Roma is based, is inferior to the programefor the majority population“. TheMinistry and the schools responded that interrelated factors were causing parents to object to educationof Roma children even in separate classes.
