EDUCATION AS A KEY FACTOR FOR POVERTY REDUCTION

The article represents an analysis of complex indicators observed by National and European statistics relevant to the relationship between poverty and the level of education of the population. The study covers a 5-year period (2016 - 2020) and all Member States of the European Union. It is upgraded with a correlation analysis of permanent risk of poverty and early school leavers in Bulgaria within the same time span. The aim is to highlight the strength and direction of the relationships and dependencies between them. Based on the investigated indicators, the author's thesis about education as a key factor in reducing poverty in Bulgaria is confirmed. The research uses an analytical approach, which is based on a combination of analysis of literature sources and research of documents, but mainly uses comparative empirical and correlation analysis. For the purpose of the study, three groups of main indicators were adopted: complex, educational and poverty indicators.