Socio-economic status

The remaining 51% of the Roma population is comprised of economically active (employed and unemployed) and other economically inactive people - at home, maternitiy leave or parental leave, the disabled and others. With the growing level of segregation in the field of accommodation, the level of unemployment of the Roma populalion increases slightly. Based on the UNDP survey in 2010, the majority of unemployed Roma is in the age group of 15 - 64 years - 72% of Roma men and 75% of Roma women.

Therefore, the majority of the Roma population relies on social security benefits and state support. The report on the living conditions of the Roma in Slovakia points out that during the last month 72.7% of questioned households received the support related to material needs. 27.3% of the households were without this income. The occurrence of these incomes is higher for households in the segregated villages where it reaches almost 80% (Filadelfiová, J., Gerbery, D., Skobla, D., 2006). Low-income level leads to household debt, especially in relation to the payments for accommodation and lack of financial means to buy food (UNDP, 2013).

One of the main problems of the Roma community are also non-standard conditions of accommodation and the access to fresh water. Popper et al. discovered in the analysis of the Roma situation that less than a half (46.5%) of the Roma in Slovakia live in standard living conditions. Mostly they live in unsuitable flats (47.3%) or even shacks (6.2%) (Popper et al., 2009). The report on the living conditions of the Roma points out that more than 30% of the Roma live in unsuitable conditions (UNDP, 2013). More than half of the Roma population lives in substandard living conditions or even sheds. The average number of 5-6 people living in one Roma household is higher than the average of the majority population, while there is the opposite proportion between the quality of accommodation and the number of household members. For the most part the Roma live in multigenerational households where mostly women take care of children and sick members of the household, which confirms the traditional separation of gender roles (Popper et al., 2009).

Source: http://blogs.ft.com/photo-diary/files/2013/10/ROMA.jpg

References:

Filadelfiová, J., Gerbery,D., Škobla, D. 2006. Správa o životných podmienkach rómskych domácností na Slovensku. Rozvojový program OSN (UNDP):2006. ISBN: 80-89263-02-X
Popper,M., Szeghy,P., Šarkozy, S. 2009. Rómska populácia a zdravie: Analýza situácie na Slovensku. FSG:2009. ISBN: 978-84-692-5485-1
Rozvojový program OSN. (UNDP). 2013. Situačná analýza vybraných aspektov životnej úrovne domácností vylúčených Rómskych osídlení. UNDP. 2013. ISBN: 978-80-89263-14-1