Reveal Marketing: crisis has widened income disparities in Romania

The Romanians with above-average wealth and education - defined as 'modern families' - not only are more satisfied with their incomes compared to those with average wealth and education (defined for some reasons as 'traditional families'), but their satisfaction has increased during the pandemic in contrast to the 'traditional families'.

Thus, the share of Romanians in 'modern families' satisfied with their wealth increased from 54% in February to 62% in June. In contrast, the share of satisfied 'traditional Romanians' (those with average education and wealth) decreased from 46% in April to 36% in June.

The findings published by Reveal Marketing are based on research carried out during February-June 2021 and are said to have a margin of error of 3pp for a 95% confidence.

While the self-evident fact that wealthier Romanians are more satisfied with their financial situation than the 'average' category (which in Romania means pretty low incomes), the study has the merit of highlighting the widening of the wealth disparity during the pandemic - in the context of Romania already featuring among the widest disparities in Europe, before the crisis.

On the downside, the study totally ignores several categories quite relevant for a sociology study: those of the Romanians with below-average education and low wealth, of the Romanians with average or below-average education but high wealth, and of the Romanians with high education but average or below-average wealth - which would have revealed less self-evident facts.

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