Rural poverty as a way of life: a study based on time budget statistics

Time budget is an adequate tool for the study of lifestyle, understood through the combination of various types of activities. The welfare loss to the level below the poverty line is characterized by a significant change in lifestyle and is reflected in the transformation of the structure of the time budget. Married couples without children and singles are less exposed to the risk of poverty than others. The former are characterized by high time spent on self-sufficiency, which is largely motivated by helping children living separately. The latter are characterized by high expenditures of time on organization of everyday life. The rural population aged 25-50 actively uses self-employment as an additional source of income, however, it does not become an alternative to official work. Poverty in this group is characterized by a redistribution of the time budget from work mainly to self-sufficiency practices and, to a lesser extent, household and leisure activities. In this case, poverty is dangerous due to rapid habituation to a lifestyle of semi-subsistence farming. The highest risk of poverty is among families with many children and single-parent families. The way out of poverty for them is associated with an increase in the balance of the time budget, a more complete use of self-employment opportunities.