Title: What is Social Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe? Stephen Whitefield stephen.whitefield@politics.ox.ac.uk and Matthew Loveless matthew.loveless@politics.ox.ac.uk EUREQUAL: http://eurequal.politics.ox.ac.uk/
1What is Social Inequality in Central and Eastern
Europe?Stephen Whitefieldstephen.whitefield_at_pol
itics.ox.ac.ukand Matthew Lovelessmatthew.lovel
ess_at_politics.ox.ac.ukEUREQUAL
http//eurequal.politics.ox.ac.uk/
- Paper presented at CEELBAS Conference Session,
Emerging dimensions of social inequality in
Russia and Eastern Europe, St Antonys College,
Oxford, December 13, 2008 - Work in Progress Please DO NOT CITE
2What is social inequality?
- A vague concept compared with work on
- Income inequality (Milanovic, 1998 Atkinson,
1999) - Inequality of wealth (Cagetti and De Nardi, 2008)
- Labour market segmentation, e.g. by gender,
ethnicity (Schrover et al, 2007) - Welfare status (Layte and Whelan, 2003)
- Skills and training (Brown et al, 2008)
- Health inequality (Marmot and Wilkinson, 1999)
- Housing inequality (Morris and Winn, 1990)
- Social inequality as a package of inequalities
3The CEELBAS working definition
- Social inequality refers to the ways in which
socially-defined categories of persons (according
to characteristics such as gender, age, class
and ethnicity) are differentially positioned with
regard to access to a variety of social goods,
such as the labour market and other sources of
income, the education and healthcare systems, and
forms of political representation and
participation. These and other forms of social
inequality are shaped by a range of structural
factors, such as geographical location or
citizenship status, and are often underpinned by
cultural discourses and identities defining, for
example, whether the poor are deserving or
undeserving. - http//www.ceelbas.ac.uk/research/socialinequality
4A Eurequal working definition of social
inequality
- the structure of advantage and disadvantage in
the life chances and life outcomes of individuals
and families (health, happiness, income, wealth,
social and cultural opportunities, etc) that are
significantly shaped by citizens social and
economic locations and identities (labour market
situation, social class, education, gender,
ethnicity, age, citizenship, etc), by other
important distributional mechanisms (social
networks -corruption, blat government
institutions and policies), and by national
characteristics (economic and political
development).
5The problem of packages in Central and Eastern
Europe
- Some research points to the fragmenting impact of
Communist power and command economies on the
packaging of advantages and disadvantages - Housing (Szelenyi, 1987)
- Class fragmentation (Kende and Strmiska, 1987)
- Communist-era political economy (Bunce, 1985
Sabel and Stark, 1982) - The transitional character of markets and
democracy may also limit the emergence of
packages that one might expect in established
market democracies (Kitschelt, 1992) - The differential character of market and
democratic development in the region might lead
us to expect differences in the form and extent
of packaging
6Issues arising
- Is there a social inequality package? How do
packages vary across countries? - Does our measure of social inequality packages
correlate in appropriate ways with some other
predicted outcomes of social advantage and
disadvantage? - What kinds of people do well or badly in terms of
the package of social inequality? How do the
determinants of social advantage vary across
countries? - What kinds of countries are more or less socially
advantaged? - How unequal are countries in terms of the
distribution of advantages and disadvantages? And
what kinds of countries are more unequal than
others?
7The Eurequal surveys
- Conducted in 13 countries in Spring, 2007
- Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland,
Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine - National probability samples of between 1000 and
2000 respondents
8The packaging of social advantage and disadvantage
- To what extent do the following arenas in which
goods may be differentially distributed correlate
with one another? As one package, none, or many? - Income
- Possessions
- Savings
- Employment benefits
- Housing situation
- Health
- Health access
- Educational access
- Cultural access
9Table 1. Factor Loadings
Income3 Savings Access Health Access Education Access Culture Health House Situ. Benefits Stuff Eigenvalue (difference) N
Aggregate 0.3756 0.3821 0.8092 0.8294 0.8124 0.4500 0.3957 0.1351 0.6070 3.04 (2.68) 8419
Belarus 0.4883 0.2619 0.7934 0.8175 0.8246 0.2242 0.1508 0.2017 0.5154 2.66 (2.26) 669
Bulgaria 0.5600 0.3499 0.7786 0.7803 0.7600 0.3030 0.2958 0.0499 0.6092 2.78 (2.45) 433
Czech Rep 0.5557 0.3541 0.5961 0.7389 0.7174 0.1552 0.3926 0.3291 0.6947 2.62 (2.30) 587
Estonia 0.3634 0.3868 0.7774 0.8061 0.8071 0.0735 0.3903 0.1249 0.5514 2.66 (2.19) 604
Hungary 0.4148 0.3213 0.7357 0.7875 0.7786 0.1658 0.4075 0.1664 0.4527 2.47 (1.95) 479
Latvia 0.5138 0.3849 0.8343 0.8040 0.8378 0.4001 0.4077 0.2796 0.5768 3.19 (2.74) 660
Lithuania 0.5250 0.3905 0.8826 0.9045 0.8686 0.2551 0.4395 0.2430 0.6119 3.47 (3.09) 561
Moldova 0.3954 0.3325 0.7467 0.7403 0.7197 0.4173 0.5157 0.0207 0.5566 2.64 (2.14) 566
Poland 0.6076 0.4782 0.5171 n/a 0.5587 0.1109 0.5963 0.1593 0.6044 1.94 (1.72) 978
Romania 0.5394 0.3048 0.8081 0.8608 0.8441 0.2618 0.3826 0.2475 0.6657 3.21 (2.77) 969
Russia 0.4498 0.2981 0.8381 0.8359 0.7875 0.2667 0.2686 0.0823 0.4924 2.71 (2.41) 1190
Slovakia 0.4070 0.3079 0.6351 0.7368 0.6918 -0.039 0.3084 0.2640 0.5856 2.19 (1.74) 649
Ukraine 0.3152 0.2762 0.8467 0.8616 0.8533 0.348 0.2773 0.0025 0.5379 2.85 (2.67) 1052
10Figure 1. Percentage contribution of each factor
loading to factor as a whole (pooled and by
country)
11What does the package of advantage and
disadvantage predict in terms of other aspects
household economic circumstances?
- External validation exercise for our factor
- If our factor picks up differences in the
distribution of advantage and disadvantages, then
it should clearly be associated with a range of
other important household economic circumstances - Material deprivation
- Perceptions of changes in living standards
- Ability to buy medicine or pay utility bills
12Table 2. Regression of assessments of social
inequality factor on to aspects of household
economic circumstances
b (se) Material deprivation OLS Comparison of Living Standards OLS Enough money to buy medicine Logit Enough money to pay utility bills Logit
Social inequality factor 0.63 (0.01) 1.01 (0.01) 1.52 (0.04) 1.29 (0.04)
Constant 2.86 (0.01) 3.33 (0.01) 1.60 (0.03) 2.07 (0.04)
R2 .41 .60 .24 .18
N 8351 8398 8395 8395
plt0.05, plt0.01, plt0.001
13What kinds of countries are advantaged or
disadvantages?
- Differences across the region
- Russia and Ukraine are most disadvantaged on
average, while Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary
and Slovakia are most advantaged - Differences in economic and political development
- Growing countries have on average more advantages
- Politically freer countries are also more
advantaged - Differences by levels of inequality
- More unequal countries (by comparison of ginis)
are also disadvantaged
14Conclusions
- There is a package one package of social
advantage and disadvantage - The package is strongly predictive of important
household economic outcomes and perceptions - The usual suspects do well and badly and
differences across countries appear relatively
weak in terms of the social determinants of
advantage and disadvantage - Countries that are more democratic, grow
economically and are more egalitarian have
populations that are on average more advantaged
than countries that are not - In other words Central and Eastern Europe does
not appear to present differently than states
elsewhere - although until we can do the same analysis
elsewhere we cant be sure. - Still, the analysis of social inequality has a
promising future.