Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

1.9. Education and demographic
features
The population with a college or university
degree was not exposed to poverty risk. The share of
the poor significantly declines as the education level
of the household head increases (Table 11). The
household whose head is uneducated or has
incomplete primary school education recorded the
largest poverty index of all education groups, which
equalled 18.7 percent in 2007. Completing primary
school reduces the risk of poverty to 10.3 percent. It
is only these two groups that had the poverty risk
above the population average, however, they
accounted for as much as 71.3 percent of the poor.
On the other hand, the population living in
households whose head has a college or university
degree had close-to-zero poverty index (0.7 percent
and 0.6 percent respectively) and accounted for 1.7
percent of the poor. Similar relations between
poverty and education also existed in 2002.
Gender of the household head does not significantly
affect a household’s poverty. Although
households where the woman was head were more
poverty-stricken in 2002, five years later such a
difference in poverty is lost (Table 12). Namely, we
may claim with 95 percent significance that in 2007
poverty in the households where a man is the head
ranged from 5.4 percent to 8.1 percent, and poverty
in households where a woman is the head ranged
from 4.2 percent to 7.6 percent. Given that these
two intervals overlap, there is no statistically significant
difference between the poverty of
households headed by men and women in 2007.
Senior people and children up to 14 years of
age are more exposed to poverty risk than other age
groups. The highest poverty risk still pertains to
senior people (65+) and their status with respect to
the population average remained almost unchanged
(Table 13). Even though significantly lower percent
of senior population was poor in 2007 as compared
to 2002 (9.6 percent versus 19.9 percent), these
people were still exposed to poverty risk over 40
percent higher than the population average. Senior
people accounted for 17.4 percent of population and
a fourth of the poor (25.3 percent). Financial
standing of the poor was improved in almost all
countries undergoing transition (Alam and others,
2005).
Table 1.11. Poverty according to education level of the household head, 2002-2007
No school or
incomplete primary
school
Structure of the poor,
Structure of overall
Percentage of the poor
percent
population, percent
2002 2007 Change 2002 2007 Change 2002 2007 Change
25.8 18.7 -7.1 34.1 40.8 6.7 18.6 14.4 -4.2
Primary school 23.1 10.3 -12.7 32.6 30.5 -2.1 19.8 19.5 -0.3
Vocational or threeyear
secondary school
Secondary or high
school
13.6 4.4 -9.2 19.7 12.0 -7.7 20.3 18.0 -2.4
5.4 3.2 -2.1 10.1 15.0 4.9 26.5 30.7 4.2
College 6.1 0.7 -5.4 2.8 0.8 -2.0 6.4 7.2 0.8
University 1.3 0.6 -0.7 0.7 0.9 0.2 8.4 10.3 1.9
Total 14.0 6.6 -7.4 100.0 100.0 0.0 100.0 100.0 0.0
Note: Changes in percentage points between 2002 and 2007.
20 Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007