Revista Romana de Economie (Jun 2006)
THE POPULATION’S NOMINAL AND REAL INCOMES IN ROMANIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Abstract
The research of Romania’s population incomes for a period of a century has not only an incontestable historical importance, but also a social one, as it may give answer to the question what was gained from the viewpoint of the living standard of the population in the 20th century. The issue is approached under two aspects of the economic and social polarisation process, and of the real incomes, and also with respect to the capacity of comparing the main population categories. The differing purposes of the social and ideological systems underwent during this century, and the periods of war and destruction have both triggered a sinuous incomes’ curve with considerable raises and falls of incomes. The final conclusion is that the level of average incomes from 1914 is re-established in the aftermath of the First World War only about 1929, and the year 1938 is situated beneath the pre-crises threshold. World War II and the crisis following it have diminished average incomes to 20 - 25% from the level of the year 1938 and only after 1970 the pre-war threshold is reached again, which is followed in the eighties and nineties by significant growth to be brutally annulled by the transition processes up to 2000, when the average real income is again at the level of the year 1970. It results that the development efforts of six decades, 1939-2000, from the viewpoint of incomes’ level were lost for the majority of the country’s population in favour of a minority that was made rich by the transition.
