Long-Term Characteristics of Poverty in Slovenia (poverty, socialism and transition)

After the Second World War, the communist authorities in Slovenia based their legitimacy on the premise of social justice. To their surprise, they were soon confronted with various problems arising from the social and economic structure of society. The authorities were surprised that the rapid growth of the gross domestic product did not translate into a better quality of life for all parts of society. They were confronted with the consequences of different types of social, economic and regional inequality as a historical legacy, with poverty being a central part of the discussions. The aim of the presentation is to show how the authorities responded to the economic and social inequalities, how the inequalities were incorporated into the ideology and how they were managed, what kind of social and economic policies were introduced and what long-term effects they had on poverty. In the second part, the long-term situation of the peasant population in the second half of the 20th century is presented as an example of the systematic creation of poverty. This poverty then continued throughout the life cycle into the older stages of people's lives. Broader social and political context shaped old-age poverty at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Only long term perspective explains the roots and extent of old-age poverty in Slovenia today.