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Poverty alleviation is one of the key objectives of socio-economic policy of most governments, not only as a direct goal, but also as an intermediate target to improve the aspects of the quality of life which are consequences of low economic standards. In early life poverty has been shown to affect health and school performance (e. g. Smith et al. 1997). There is also growing evidence for correlation of poverty with outcomes at later stages in life, in particular with physical and mental health (Dahl & Birkelund 1997, Grundy & Holt 2001, Huisman et al. 2003) as well as broader aspects such as life satisfaction and happiness. In cross-European context Kok et al.(2008) showed that low levels of wealth and education are positively correlated with outcomes such as heart attack, diabetes as well as with poor health in general. In times of rapid demographic changes, understanding the role of poverty in determining the key …