Child Poverty in Armenia

Gohar Jerbashian conducted a detailed, multi-dimensional analysis of child poverty in Armenia. She analyzed the data available from the CRRC 2004 Data Initiative and from the Family Poverty Benefit (FPB) databases and conducted a content analysis of other sources. By exploring various types of socially vulnerable families (for example, those who lost their income earners, experienced hardships because of the inadequacy of survivors’ pensions, or had two or more children under the age of 14) she found that neither survivors’ pensions nor FPB provided needy children with adequate financial resources to enable them to sustain decent living standards and acquire skills and knowledge to lift them out of poverty and take part fully in Armenian society.

As a result of her research, Jerbashian provided a set of policy recommendations to combat child poverty in Armenia, the most important of which included covering poor children with quality state-funded early childhood development programs, increasing the level of single parent employment, increasing the minimum wage, introducing tax credits for families with children, revising school programs and increasing childhood health care.

Jerbashian’s paper, in English, can be found here.