TRANSITIONS INTO AND OUT OF NEAR POVERTY IN URBAN AND RURAL AREAS IN POLAND

The aim of paper is to analyse the movement into and out of near poverty in urban and rural areas in Poland using Markov transition matrices. Three poverty states are considered: poverty, near poverty (income between 100 and 125 per cent of the poverty threshold is assumed in the paper) and above near poverty. The analysis is conducted for Poland based on the balanced panel from 2009 to 2015 (four waves: 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015) in the framework of the "Social Diagnosis" project. The panel contains almost four thousand households. The near poverty rate is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The probability that a household will remain in near poverty in two years is higher in urban households and the probability that a household will exit from near poverty to poverty is higher in rural areas. The mean duration of stay in near poverty is slightly longer in urban areas.