YEREVAN. – Less than half of the poor in Armenia accept their poverty, sociologist Aharon Adibekyan said at a press conference on Friday.

He noted that even though the poor and the extremely poor in Armenia make up 42 percent of the country’s population, solely 19.4 percent of them are willing to accept their poverty.

As per Adibekyan, the first reason is the desire to psychologically protect themselves from the psychological discomfort linked to the concept of poverty.

“These families want to convince themselves to the contrary. [They say,] ‘For us this is enough, too,’ or, ‘At least we have a home; we’ll sell [it] at a pinch,’ etc,” the sociologist explained.