CC BY
3SOCIAL SCIENCES
GLOBAL AND REGIONAL DIMENSIONS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC OUTCOMES OF THE COVID-19
PANDEMIC
Butkaliuk V.
PhD in Sociology, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Economic Sociology, Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7156368
ABSTRACT
The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in both the global and regional dimension (using Russia, Ukraine and Belarus as examples). The author focuses on finding the key reasons for the vulnerability of global and national economies and societies to the current pandemic.
Among the analyzed countries, Ukraine was affected the most. Throughout the entire post-Soviet period, this country has been pursuing the most radical neoliberal policy.
The article concludes that making societies more resilient to possible future crises requires immediate solutions to acute social problems (in particular, poverty and inequality), as well as the rejection of neoliberal practices in both the global and national dimension.
The author draws upon an immense array of social statistics data, as well as the sociological surveys' results conducted by leading sociological centers of the studied countries.
Keywords: COVID-19, neoliberalism, social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, welfare, inequality, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly exacerbated the social and economic problems of the capitalist system and has become a trigger to the current crisis at the global level. This global trouble has actually crossed out the progress in human development made by humankind in recent decades (Malpass, 2020; UNDP, 2020, p.3), and, according to the UN, it is the greatest test that the people have faced since the Second World War (UNDP, 2020, p.4).
Many researchers and think tanks have studied the impact of pandemic on human life (Bambra, Lynch and Smith, 2021; ILO, 2021a; ILO, 2021b; Ipsos, 2020; Ip-sos, 2021; Oxfam, 2021; Oxfam, 2022; Ryan, 2020; UN, 2020a; UNDP, 2020, etc). Sociological discourse on this issue has recently been predominantly focused on the search for deeper, structural roots of the extreme socio-economic losses that have befallen world civilization under these conditions. In particular, more and more attention is being paid by scholars to proving the conclusions that the origins of the present-day crisis lie in the practical implementation of the neoliberal concept of growth and development, which has significantly depleted the economic and social institutions of contemporary societies in recent decades (Blum and Neumarker, 2021; Isakovic, 2020; Mair, 2020; Navarro, 2020; Saad-Filho, 2020; Sumonja, 2021, etc.). The author supports this critical conceptual approach; besides, the present study is based on the assumption that the present crisis, although caused by the pandemic, is systemic in nature and a natural consequence of the exacerbation of the contradictions of the capitalist economy. Here it would be appropriate to recall that scientists and scholars have long paid attention to the crisis situation of the modern model of capitalism (Arrighi, 2009; Atkinson, 2018; Beck, 2000; Beck, 2001; Chomsky, 2015; Dumenil and Levy, 2011; Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2009; Klein, 2016; Kotz, 2015; Overbeek and Apeldoorn, 2012; Stiglitz, 2015; Stiglitz,
2020; Wallerstein, 2013; Wallerstein, 2015). And also that back in 2019, a report to the Club of Rome equated the state of society to a "perfect storm", threatening the world with many social upheavals and catastrophes (Von Weizsäcker and Wijkmann, 2019).
In an economically globalized world, the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic have affected all national economies, as well as people in every part of the world. However, the social impact of the pandemic varies considerably from country to country. These differences will also shape the possibilities for national and global economies with regard to recovering from the current crisis. In view of the above, a comprehensive scientific analysis of the consequences of the pandemic, far from being irrelevant, has become a key demand for present-day social sciences.
The aim of this article is to analyze, within the framework of an economic and sociological approach, the scale and specificity of social losses caused by the pandemic in both global and regional dimension. The regional aspect of the study is carried out using as an example three Slavic post-Soviet countries such as Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The choice of these countries is not random, but aims to provide a regional analysis of the social consequences of the pandemic in the "core" countries of the former Soviet Union. Despite the sufficient elaboration of this issue in each of the designated countries (Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2021; Ste-panenko, 2021; Nevedomskaya, 2021; Torkunov, Rya-zantsev and Levashov, 2021, etc), their comparative analysis has not actually been performed. The relevance of such analysis is especially high now, 30 years after the collapse of the USSR and the beginning of market reforms in the post-Soviet space. In our view, a comprehensive assessment of the consequences of the pandemic and the effectiveness of the policies of these states in the conditions of the corona crisis, can serve
as one of the criteria of social efficacy of the models of socio-economic development chosen by these states in the post-Soviet period.
To achieve the aim of the study, the author focused on the following: an analysis of the key social consequences of the pandemic in the global dimension; a comparative analysis of the human losses and vaccination crisis in the countries studied; elucidation of the key "pain points" of the socio-economic systems of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in the pre-pandemic period, which are forming the scale of losses in force majeure situations; a comparative analysis of the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic in the mentioned countries.
The author bases her conclusions on an in-depth analysis of a wide range of social statistics and empirical material obtained by leading public opinion research centers in the post-Soviet space.
Global dimension of the social consequences of the pandemic
The key social consequences of the pandemic in its global dimension include an unprecedented increase in labor underutilization, a fall in labor incomes, and an increase in poverty and economic inequality.
According to the International Labor Organization, the disruption of the global labor market in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has reached historically unique changes. In the first year of the pandemic, the quarantine restrictions and job closure regime affected over 90% of workers, and global working hours were reduced by about 8.8%. This reduction in working hours was equivalent to the loss of 114 million jobs (ILO, 2021b, p. 12). The largest losses in hours were recorded in North and South America. As far as the industry sector is concerned, hospitality, catering, manufacturing, retail, commercial and administrative activities have been affected the most (ILO, 2021a, p.2). As of early 2022, key labor market indicators in all regions of the world have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Projections for 2023 suggest that a full recovery will remain elusive (ILO, 2022, p. 12).
The groups most affected by the corona crisis are those considered most vulnerable even before the crisis — women, young people, migrants, workers of color and national minorities (ILO, 2021a: 2; UNDP, 2020, p. 18). Besides, young people turned out to be the group that has not only suffered the greatest losses, but is likely to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic for the rest of their lives. The emergence of the "quarantine generation" was a consequence of the intersectional nature of the shocks experienced by this social group as a result of the pandemic (ILO, 2021a, p. 10).
The high level of informal employment during the pandemic has left a large proportion of working people virtually defenseless in the face of this social catastrophe. According to the ILO, informal workers are three times as likely as formal workers and 1.6 times as likely as the self-employed to lose their jobs as a result of the corona crisis. In addition, informal workers, having less savings, are more likely to be trapped in cashlessness and poverty, ultimately reducing their ability to cope with their plight in the foreseeable future (ILO, 2021b, p.13-14).
The pandemic has demonstrated not only the high vulnerability of informal employment but also the weakness of public social protection systems. In global terms, in 2020, only 46.9% of the world's population actually benefited from at least one form of social assistance, while the rest (53.1% or 4.1 billion people) were left entirely without it (ILO, 2021d, p.45). According to Oxfam, one in three workers during the pandemic was deprived of labor rights and social protection, including sick pay (Oxfam, 2021, p. 15).
Pandemic labor market destabilization has led to a fall in labor income, an increase in poverty and inequality (ILO, 2021d, p.30; ILO, 2022, p. 18, 28; Oxfam, 2021; UNDP, 2020). The level of working extreme poverty has increased from 6.7% to the current 7.2% (by 31 million people). Over the same period, the number of moderately poor workers has increased by almost 77 million (from 11.4% to 14.2%). This trend is explained by both declining working hours and falling earnings, and means that the progress of the past six years in reducing working poverty in the global dimension has leveled off (ILO, 2021b, p.28).
While the majority of the population suffers a loss of income and livelihood, in the 2020 "pandemic" year the combined wealth of the world' s 25 richest families increased by 22% or US$312 billion (Pendleton, 2021). The latest Credit Suisse "Global Wealth Report 2021" notes, 2020 marks a period when the UHNW (ultra high net worth) group grew by a maximum of 24% in the last 17 years (Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2021, p. 1718). In less than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth of a small group of the super-rich, consisting of 2,755 billionaires, has grown more than in the entire last fourteen years. And the wealth of the 10 richest people have doubled in that period (Oxfam, 2022, p. 10).
Overall, with the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine measures blocking economic activity in many areas nationally and globally, the wealthiest segments of the population, though they suffered losses, were able to catch up fairly quickly. According to Oxfam, it took just nine months for one thousand of the richest people on the planet to return to their pre-pandemic peaks. While the world's poorest people will have spent more than 10 years of their lives doing this (Oxfam, 2021, p.9, 23).
Post-Soviet countries in the grip of a pandemic: A comparative analysis
For decades, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus had been a single economic, political and cultural space within a single union state, the USSR. After the collapse of this political actor, these countries chose different models of social development. While in Ukraine and Russia the market transformations were of a similar nature and were carried out within a neoliberal set of measures within the framework of the Washington Consensus, in Belarus the transition to the market was not of a "shock" nature: the state retained most of the property and implemented a policy of social protectionism towards the population. As a result, after three decades of post-Soviet transformation, these countries are quite different in terms of their level of economic development, type of social policy and their weight on
both the geopolitical and geo-economic map of the world. These differences have also shaped the difference in public policy capacity in the face of the pandemic, as well as the social consequences of the current global corona crisis for the population.
At the same time, the "Slavic post-Soviet space" also faces common problems that pose similar risks and threats to the population in the current environment. In particular, there is a high mortality rate from corona-virus in Russia and Ukraine, along with low vaccination coverage in these countries. Both Ukraine (which does not have its own vaccine and is heavily dependent on international aid programs) and Russia (which has been the first country in the world to declare vaccine production and now produces it in large quantities) have vaccination coverage below half the population. The situation is slightly different in Belarus, which is formally part of a the Union State with the Russian Federation, but pursues a different policy in the current global pandemic. In fact, Belarus is a unique example of a very cautious restrictive policy in a pandemic: no lockdown has been introduced in the country, no educational institutions have been closed, even the mandatory wearing of masks and keeping a safe distance in public places have only been introduced since October 2021 (Deutsche Welle, 2021a).
Human losses and vaccination crisis in the "Slavic world" (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
Among the countries under study, Ukraine has suffered the greatest human losses over almost two years of the pandemic. The situation of Russia and Belarus in this context, although rather difficult, is not so critical.
Ukraine has the highest mortality rate due to COVID-19. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people in that country (as of 22 February - before the military confrontation in Ukraine) is 2,573, whereas in the Russian Federation it is 2,330 and in Belarus it is 676 persons per million people (Our World in Data, 2022a).
Ukraine has the lowest vaccination coverage among these three countries. It should be noted that all these countries cannot boast of any particular success in this area. In terms of full vaccination coverage, first place is taken by Russia (48.2%), followed by Belarus (46.3%). In Ukraine, only one third of the adult population (34.0%) has been fully vaccinated (as of 6 February - the latest date before the military confrontation in Ukraine, when data is available for all designated countries) (Our World in Data, 2022b).
The vaccination crisis, manifested in mass refusals and unwillingness to get the vaccine, is, in our view, based both on the crisis of confidence, primarily in Ukraine and Russia, and on other country-specific factors.
As for the crisis of trust, both Ukraine and Russia have a long history of high levels of distrust of key state institutions, formed as a result of negative experiences and citizens' deceived hopes by the outcomes of postSoviet reforms. In Ukraine, moreover, distrust is massive and chronic and tends to intensify. Positive changes in this context were of a short-term spike only
during some political changes, but soon the trend was restored again (Vorona and Shulga, 2020, p.470-474). Furthermore, the crisis of confidence in this country is compounded by acute skepticism among citizens about the competence and professionalism of the current government led by a former comedian Vladimir Zelenski, as well as its ability to implement policies adequate to combat the coronavirus (KIIS, 2021; Research & Branding Group, 2021a; Research & Branding Group, 2021b; Research & Branding Group, 2021c). While there is a relatively high degree of distrust and skepticism in Russian society regarding the policies pursued by the authorities, it is not as high as in Ukraine. In addition, the Russian Federation has seen an increase in trust in key political institutions since the early 2000s. Russia also maintains a consistently high level of trust and support for the country's top leadership represented by President Vladimir Putin (Levada Center, 2021a). The same cannot be said for Ukraine, where most presidents have not completed their presidencies, but have been replaced either in early elections or by another coup d'état.
The motivations for refusing vaccination also differ among these countries. While in Russia half of the refusals of vaccination are more for medical reasons such as fear of side effects of the vaccine (33%) and the intention to wait until the end of the vaccine trial period (20%) (Levada Center, 2021b), in Ukraine the lion's share of refusals of this medical procedure is explained by distrust of both the vaccines themselves and the institutions implementing the vaccination process (Research & Branding Group, 2021d). There is also a lower level of anti-vaccine sentiment in Russia, built around "conspiracy theories". Such, according to Russian sociologists, is not more than 10% (Levada Center, 2021c). While among Ukrainian citizens their number is at least twice as large (Research & Branding Group, 2021d).
In Belarus, which refused to implement radical neoliberal transformations after the collapse of the USSR, there was no total crisis of trust. The trust of citizens in the institutions of power was at a quite high level, exceeding in many parameters the trust indicators among all the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries (Bornukova, Oginskaya and Cerliukevich, 2018, p.3-4). Support for President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the country for the past 27 years, has also been high (IISEPS, 2015; Khlostunova, 2012; Zavarin, 2015, p.23-24). Although the country has faced a political crisis in recent months and the number of domestic opponents of "Europe's last dictator" has grown, polls show that he remains the most popular politician in Belarus (Belta, 2021a; Deutsche Welle, 2021b). Today, the majority of Belarusians express support for the government's response to the coronavirus threat and are satisfied with the health care system in these conditions (Institute of Sociology of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2021a). Low vaccination coverage, in our opinion, can be explained here by the fact that the authorities, previously rather skeptical about the coronavirus problem (Rodionov, 2020), have started active promotional and organizational work in this direction only recently. In general,
the expectations of Belarusians regarding the situation with coronavirus in the country seem to be the most optimistic among all the analyzed countries against the background of confidence in the ability of the domestic health system to cope with the epidemiological situation (Institute of Sociology of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2021b).
Socio-economic losses of the post-Soviet countries during the pandemic
In an economically globalized world, the national consequences of the pandemic were predetermined by the place and role of the country in the international division of labor, by the strength of states in the pre-pandemic period, as well as by social policies during the pandemic.
Among the countries analyzed, Ukraine has also been the hardest hit in socio-economic terms. According to UN estimates, the recession faced by the country today will be the most devastating in decades (UN, 2020b). The complexity of the current economic situation was determined mainly by the financial and economic weakness and backwardness of the "pre-pan-demic" state. Ukraine found itself severely depleted by neoliberal reforms and totally unprepared for any force majeure situation, including the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. By the way, Ukraine is the only country under study whose GDP is still below its 1990 level. According to the World Bank, Ukraine's GDP in 2018 was only 64% of that of Soviet Ukraine in 1990, and GDP per capita was 78% (The World Bank, 2020). Economic weakness (Where is Ukraine going.. , 2020, p. 102), big external debt (gross external debt is 81.2% of GDP) (National Bank of Ukraine, 2021, p. 1), as well as being in a protracted military and political crisis, were the key reasons for the inability of the Ukrainian state to implement an adequate social policy to combat the pandemic.
In addition, the increased vulnerability of large segments of the population as a result of the prolonged economic downturn was shaped by such specific characteristics of the Ukrainian economy as high unemployment, high level of informal employment (30% to 50%), high dependence on remittances from labor migrants (UNDP, 2020a, p.20), as well as low income level of the majority of population (Where is Ukraine going.., 2020, p.59-63).
Ukraine's real GDP fell by 4% in the first year of the pandemic (State Statistics Service, 2021a). And despite some economic recovery, its GDP has still not reached pre-pandemic levels (State Statistics Service, 2021a).
The government's coronavirus-related restrictions have affected small and medium-sized enterprises the most. These enterprises, in a de-industrialized economy, played an important role in providing jobs and, consequently, livelihoods. In 2020, some 700,000 small enterprises in the service sector closed down, resulting in the loss of between 3.5 million and 4 million jobs (UN, 2020c). According to the UN, in 2020 more than 80 per cent of Ukrainian households lost their incomes, and the current economic crisis is likely to cause extreme poverty, which will rise explosively in the country (UN, 2020b).
Sociological studies show that the majority of the Ukrainian population has found themselves in conditions of multiple deprivations, extreme uncertainty and an acute shortage of vital resources. Corona crisis did not become an impetus for Ukrainians to create and implement positive mechanisms to overcome it; on the contrary, most residents chose its negative patterns, in particular, the tactics of total economy and reduction in consumption of basic goods and services (Stepanenko, 2021; Research & Branding Group, 2021e).
Given the typical problems of distrust of government and large-scale corruption in post-Soviet Ukraine, it is not surprising that Ukrainians tend to blame factors other than the coronavirus for the current economic crisis. In particular, the respondents consider corruption (43%) and incompetence of the authorities (34%) to be the main reasons for the current economic crisis. Only 8% of Ukrainians "blame" the pandemic for the crisis (KIIS, 2021).
The negative trends in Ukraine's social and economic development will, in our view, only worsen, forming a "trap of despair" for more and more Ukrainians. Already today, a record 40% of Ukrainians say they want to leave the country forever (Research & Branding Group, 2021f).
Russia's socio-economic losses as a result of the pandemic were also considerable. By mid-2021, however, the country had been able to overcome the economic downturn and achieve stable economic growth (World Bank, 2021, p.7).
The difficulty of the economic situation in the Russian Federation in the current crisis was formed under the influence of external and internal factors, resulting from the model of socio-economic development chosen after the collapse of the USSR. The model of peripheral economy relying on raw materials, which implemented in the post-Soviet period, although it periodically promoted economic growth in a favorable market environment (Lebsky, 2019, p. 113), actually led the country into the "trap of raw materials specialization" (Dobrenkov and Ispravnikova, 2014, p. 167), making it highly dependent on the conjuncture of raw materials markets. On the other hand, the domestic policy of de-industrialization of the economy and com-modification of the social sphere (including health care) in the spirit of neoliberalism, as in Ukraine, have aggravated many social problems (Stiglitz, 2003, p. 188; Zhdanovskaya, 2015, p.6). In particular, it has led to poverty and low-income of large segments of the population (17.8 million poor and 36 million low-income) (Deutsche Welle, 2021c), as well as extremely high levels of inequality (World Inequality Lab, 2021, p.217). These problems have significantly reduced the social resilience of Russian society in the face of the crisis.
According to a joint study by the World Bank and the Higher School of Economics, in Russia the impact of the corona crisis has been negative for all groups of the population. Most households experienced a drop in well-being, with the exception of families with two or more children, due to special additional government support measures (Matytsin and Popova, 2020). The crisis exposed inequalities, including those in access to
health care and good jobs (Higher School of Economics, 2020).
The shock of the quarantine measures during the first year of the pandemic was extremely painful for the majority of workers in the Russian Federation. The suspension of production processes, the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized enterprises, along with falling global demand for energy, resulted in a 3.1% fall in Russia's GDP in 2020 (Rosstat, 2021). The maximum fall in employment was recorded in the first half of the pandemic when unemployment rose from 4.3% to 6.4%. At the same time, many workers (about 4.6 million people) were in forced suspension from work and, consequently, experienced falling incomes (Torkunov, Ryazantsev and Levashov, 2021, p.119).
It should be noted that while the Ukrainian authorities left the majority of their country's citizens to face the pandemic alone, the Russian authorities implemented a fairly broad program to support the economy and the population in these conditions. The implemented set of measures aimed at preserving incomes and employment allowed not only entering the trajectory of economic growth (RBC, 2021; World Bank, 2021, p.7), but also avoiding large-scale expansion of poverty and even smoothing income inequality slightly (Higher School of Economics, 2020). Real wages in 2020 increased by over 2%, their growth in the first half of 2021 was 2.5% (World Bank, 2021, p.13). The poverty rate in 2021 dropped from 14.4% to 13.1% (World Bank, 2021, p.12), and unemployment decreased from 5.8% to 4.8% (Interfax, 2021).
Yet, despite the gradual recovery of economic indicators after the first waves of the pandemic, Russia is facing the need to overcome long-standing social problems. These include rising prices (61%), poverty and impoverishment of the population (36%), as well as corruption (33%) (Levada Center, 2021d). These problems not only hamper further socio-economic development, but also prevent society from becoming more resilient in the face of possible future crises.
The analysis of the socio-economic situation in Belarus reveals the specifics of the manifestation of the global corona crisis in this country. According to experts, Belarus, which does not resort to the universal practice of lockdown, has suffered key losses in recent years not so much due to the pandemic, but as a result of sanctions imposed against this country by Western countries (Aleksandrovskaya, 2021). Also, a painful blow to its economy was dealt by a drop in external demand due to the lockdown of its important trading partners, primarily in Russia (Nevedomskaya, 2021).
As a result, 2020 was a rather difficult year for Belarus. In particular, during this year, the country's foreign exchange reserves decreased by 20.5% (by US$1.9 billion), while the external debt reached a record US$40 billion. Investment activity in the Belarus-ian market also decreased significantly (Aleksan-drovskaya, 2021). At the same time, the decline in Belarus' GDP during the pandemic was much smaller than in neighboring countries, amounting to only 0.9% (Belta, 2021b). In 2021, GDP and industrial development indicators showed steady growth (National Statistical Committee, 2021a).
The citizens of Belarus, in the most difficult first year of the pandemic for most of the world's population, did not experience such severe economic shocks in key indicators of social and economic development. As for unemployment, for example, it did not rise during the period in question, only a slowdown in its rate of decline was observed. For example, whereas in 2018 unemployment fell from 5.6% to 4.8% and in 2019 from 4.8% to 4.2%, in the first pandemic year the decline was only 0.2% (from 4.2% to 4.0%) (National Statistical Committee, 2020, p. 14; National Statistical Committee, 2021b, p. 14). The unemployment rate at the end of 2021 was 3.9% (National Statistical Committee, 2021c, p.5). In the period of 2020-2021, there was also an increase in the average wage of Belarusians (from US$431 at the beginning of 2020 to the current $556) and the average pension (from US$170 to the current US$203) (National Statistical Committee, 2020, p.8; National Statistical Committee, 2021b, p.8; National Statistical Committee, 2021c, p.5). It should be noted that the size of pension accruals in Belarus is comparable with those in the Russian Federation and significantly higher than in Ukraine. For comparison, the average pension in the Russian Federation is US$213 (Federal State Statistics Service, 2021a), while in Ukraine it is only US$143 (Pension Fund of Ukraine, 2021). As for the average salary, the Russian Federation is here in the lead (US$740 per month) (Federal State Statistics Service, 2021b), and the worst indicators are in Ukraine (US$515 per month) (State Statistics Service, 2021b).
While Belarus managed to avoid an increase in unemployment, the level of well-being of its citizens declined slightly due to the practice of unpaid holidays and the abolition of bonuses applied in both the public and private sector. Workers in the tourism, trade and transport sectors were among those hardest hit by the corona crisis in this country (Economic Newspaper, 2021; Nevedomskaya, 2021). "Mobility shock" and the closure of borders with the country's main partner had a negative economic impact mainly on women, whereas the export shock, on the contrary, on men, which is explained by sectoral differences in employment of Belarusian citizens (Nevedomskaya, 2021).
It should be noted that the broad social policy, which was implemented during the pre-pandemic period, played a significant role for both the economic and political stability of this country in the analyzed period. The key point is that the social paternalism policy of Belarus has contributed to minimizing the problems of poverty and inequality. Belarus, according to Credit Suisse experts, belonged to the group of upper-middle-income countries in 2019. The average income of Bel-arusians, although lower than, for example, that of Russians, was almost twice as high as that of Ukrainians (US$16590 per year compared to US$8792 per year). At the same time, throughout the post-Soviet period, Belarus has differed from Ukraine and Russia in terms of much lower levels of inequality (Economic Newspaper, 2019). As a result, this contributed to both a higher level of socio-economic stability and higher trust in the authorities and their policies than in Ukraine and Russia (Bornukova, Oginskaya and Cerliukevich, 2018, p.3-
4). A positive role in this context was also played by the maintenance of free and accessible medical care for the population (based on the model of the Soviet system), as well as the social policy of the Belarusian state aimed at controlling prices and supporting the manufacturing sector during the crisis.
Conclusions
The analysis shows that the global COVID-19 pandemic has severely damaged the global economy and caused severe social disruption for all humanity. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the problems of poverty and inequality, the vulnerability of flexible employment, the weakness of health care and social protection systems.
The post-Soviet "core" countries (Ukraine, Russia and Belarus) have also been severely affected by this global element. Among the analyzed countries, Ukraine has suffered the most. Throughout the post-Soviet period, this country has been pursuing the most radical neoliberal policies within the IMF's imperative recommendations. And while in the Russian Federation the consequences of neoliberal practices are not so devastating, due to the higher economic and political stability of the state, Ukraine's situation is critical in this respect. Ukraine has actually fallen into the trap of persistent underdevelopment and the imminent degradation of state and public institutions. The situation of Belarus-ians (thanks to the socially oriented policy implemented during the post-Soviet period, as well as the state's refusal of radical quarantine restrictions) turned out to be the least stressful and most socially stable in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the future of this country largely depends on the ability to overcome the current political crisis.
It can be stated that severe socio-economic losses at both the global and regional level have resulted from the low social efficacy of the neoliberal model of socioeconomic development. With this in mind, the resilience of societies in the face of future challenges in this group of countries will, in our view, considerably depend on overcoming existing social problems (primarily poverty, corruption and inequality). Furthermore, building more resilient societal systems in the face of increased turbulence requires abandoning neoliberal practices and introducing a socially oriented model of societal development.
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