Socio-economic trajectories of Poland and Ukraine have been considerably diverging since the last decade of the 20th century. The former has been advancing and catching up with Western European countries in terms of the quality of life — whereas in Ukraine, the 1990s recession gave way to unsustainable economic growth, which interrupted in the second half of the 2000s and in the 2010s. The comparison of official statistics, along with the data of household surveys and public opinion polls, makes it possible to conclude that a progressive and sustainable transition from a command economy to free market, as exemplified by Poland, is accompanied by moderate
deepening of economic inequality. However, an abnormal transition (deviating from the “Polish rule”) entails excessive concentration of wealth and gives rise to corruption as a mechanism of income redistribution among different categories of population. This also results in a more noticeable stratification of opportunies for meeting vital and existential needs. Owing to a large proportion of shadow economy and undeclared work, Ukrainians remain a source of cheap labour in both the domestic and international labour markets; in addition, a persistent subculture of tax evasion is being formed in this country.