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№ 2022/2
COLESNICOVA Tatiana Vladimirovna1, CIOBANU Mihail Sergeyevich2
1National Institute for Economic Research, Republic of Moldova
2National Institute for Economic Research, Republic of Moldova
CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURES OF MOLDOVAN CITIZENS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC PERIOD: GENDER ANALYSIS
| Economy and forecasting 2022; 2:108-132 | https://doi.org/10.15407/econforecast2022.02.108 |
ABSTRACT ▼
In 2020 due to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which has motivated the declaration of COVID-19 pandemic were implemented various restrictive measures to curb it’s spread and protect the population from infection. These measures have restricted in some ways the economic activities, in which reductions of costs were necessary, including: decreasing personnel costs, costs for rent and administrative expenditures; reduction of work/production program; postponement of current and/or strategic investments or even total suspension of economic activity. Consequently, this triggers a decrease in the disposable income of the population, which in turn determines diminished consumption expenditures. Even if the disposable income of some part of population has stayed the same or has grown during the pandemic period, the fears of the directions of the future social and economic developments can also have constrictive effects on the consumption expenditures. Also, it is known that gender differences do exist in the consumption behavior. Like the other countries, the Republic of Moldova has not escaped such developments, too. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to reveal the directions of the changes in the evolution of the consumption expenditures of the population of Republic of Moldova in gender aspect. In order to achieve this goal a short literature review was done to identify the main findings in the changes in the consumption behavior during the pandemic. While in the scientific literature there are a few research studies that bring to light some aspects of the evolution of consumption during COVID-19 pandemic in Republic of Moldova, they have a qualitative character and focus on general consumption behavior or if they have a quantitative nature they center on specific groups of products and services and are not gender-sensitive, not to mention the scarcity of such studies. Hence, this paper intends to cover these gaps by offering a gender analysis of the consumption expenditures of Moldovan citizens over a large variety of products and services which were put in groups: food; clothing and luxury objects; long-term goods; other consumer goods; medicine and health care; housing; sports and leisure; transportation. The data was collected from a sociological survey done by the authors. The analysis of the survey’s data has shown that in general a greater share of men has increased their expenditures than women, while a greater share of women has reduced their spendings than men on most types of products and services.
Keywords:consumption expenditures, gender, COVID-19 pandemic, Republic of Moldova
JEL: D12, E21
| Article in English (pp. 108 - 132) | Download | Downloads :42 |
