THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION: PERCEIVED SOCIAL
INEQUALITY IN ESTONIA
RC28 Spring Meeting in Brno, Czech Republic, May 2007
Marii Paškov
Tallinn University
Abstract. The aim of the current paper is to find out the perceived inequality in Estonia. To what
extent do the people believe in the existence of the basic justice principles – equal opportunities
to get ahead in life, chances for getting fairly rewarded and satisfaction of basic needs. Answers
to these questions are used as an indication of how successful the transformation process has been
in Estonian society. The results show that people generally perceive Estonian society as relatively
unfair. Hence people tend to think there are unequal possibilities to get ahead in life, people do
not get fairly rewarded for their input and even the basic needs are not satisfied. This indicates
that the process of transformation into a modern welfare society has not achieved. The perceived
inequality is different among groups which indicate that there are different explanations for the
inequality.
Keywords: perceived inequality, social transformation, justice, legitimacy.
1. Introduction
The process of social transformation has had an important impact on the society from various
perspectives. The aim of the current paper is to analyze whether and to what extent the existing
stratification and distribution order is perceived just by the people in Estonian society. More
precisely, the aim is to find out how people evaluate the existing system: opportunities to get
ahead in life, chances for getting fairly rewarded and satisfaction of basic needs. In contrast to
many studies before the current paper will not pay attention to what justice principles people
support or consider fair but instead it analyses whether people believe in the existence of certain
principles. The attitudes in turn are expected to reflect the perceived inequality and the amount of
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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2
actual inequality in Estonian society. The central question is how the existing system is perceived
by people and whether the justice principles common to modern liberal countries are applied in
Estonian society. This would indicate how successful has been the transformation in Estonia.
Estonia is one of the post-communist countries that has gone through, or we might say – is still in
the process of – social transformation. This process should incorporate fundamental changes on
the societal level including value change and acceptance of new (liberal-democratic) principles
by the members of the society. It is argued that the liberal system and inequality is legitimate
among Western societies because of the belief in social justice – equal liberties, equal
opportunities to get ahead in life and rewards for people’s input. Whether people believe that
these principles are successfully applied in Estonian society is to be found out in the current
paper.
There are several ways to interpret the results. First of all, general negative attitudes toward the
fairness of the society might be an indication that the transformation process has not been
successful. If the majority of people would claim that the society is unfair, independent from their
own position (no matter if they are successful or unsuccessful); it would be a sign that Estonian
society is indeed unequal. It would mean that transformation process has not been succeeded in
the way it was initially planned and there are no equal possibilities for upward mobility or fair
rewards for effort in the society.
On the other hand, differences in the perceived inequality among groups would mean that the
inequality is not only structural but determined also by individual factors such as personal
disappointment with the current system or the opposite – positive experience with the new
system. Which factors play the biggest role in determining the perceived inequality is to be
answered in this paper.
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2. Theoretical background
2.1. General justice principles
Estonia together with other post-socialist countries has gone through significant changes during
the last two decades. The aim of this transformation has been to follow the example of Western
countries and become a modern democratic state. Among other things it has brought about a
significant change in the most important justice principles. Western countries are said to have
remained the stratification system’s legitimacy mainly due to certain principles that are valued
and considered fair by people. It has been argued by Robert Lane that there are two main
principles that guarantee the legitimacy of the stratification system in Western countries. First of
all, chances for economic prosperity have to be open to everybody (people have to have the
feeling that they have an equal opportunity to get ahead). Secondly, people’s input has to be
fairly rewarded (people have to believe that the reward is in accordance with their effort,
education, talent, skill etc.) (Kluegel et al. 1999, 252).
20th century is famous for new streams in the field of political philosophy and issues of social
justice. The main attention in the second half of the century was drawn to the notion of social
liberalism and the writings by John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. John Rawls is one of the most
famous authors in the last century and his Theory of Justice has impacted considerably the
modern thinking. As many philosophers before him, the aim of John Rawls was to establish
absolute principles of justice that everybody could agree upon. John Rawls established theory of
justice that incorporates the basic ideas that are to his opinion essential in order to achieve justice
in a society. The justice principles he is presenting are the following: equal liberty to everyone,
positions have to be open for everybody under the conditions of equal of opportunity and
inequalities should be to the benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls 1972, 302).
As a representative of a social liberal thinking – Rawls tried to combine liberal ideas with social
principles. His first requirement was liberty that has to be guaranteed for everybody. In contrast
to socialist thinkers Rawls agreed that inequalities are justified because different positions have to
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4
offer different rewards in order to guarantee the people with best talents, skills and knowledge
will be motivated to give their best on this position. Inequalities in the rewards are justified only
when the competition to the positions is fair and open to everybody (Rawls 2002, 167).
It is important to note that there is an exception in the theory of justice by Rawls. Rawls
emphasizes that his principles of justice can be applied only if a certain minimum standard of
living is guaranteed. Generally the equal liberty is strictly the first condition for guaranteeing
justice in a society but it can be read from the writings of Rawls that minimal level of primarygood distribution must be achieved before the equal-liberty principle is recognized as a prior
concern. The same pre-condition can also be drawn from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where
physical needs always come first (before the higher level needs). Liberty is not and cannot be
important to a person who is starving and does not have a place to live. It can be concluded that a
pre-condition for justice is the satisfaction of elementary needs (Guttman 1980, 123).
The ideas mentioned in the theories above can be brought together into general justice principles.
First of all the satisfaction of basic needs (concern for people that are less advantaged). Then
there has to be equal right to basic liberties (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, human rights
etc.), equality of opportunity (positions open to everybody) and fair reward for input. Certainly
there are more principles but the ones brought out have found most attention and acceptance
among modern philosophers and social scientists. The modern welfare states have also
incorporated these principles into their policies.
These are also the ideas that can be found in the manifestos of political parties in modern Estonia.
They mainly emphasize liberty as the priority. The care for the less advantaged is always an
issue. The latter can also found from the Estonian Constitution where for example stands the
following: (1) Everyone shall have the right to health care. Estonian citizens shall be entitled to
state assistance in the case of old age, inability to work, loss of provider, and need. The
categories, the extent, and the conditions and procedures for assistance shall be determined by
law. Unless otherwise determined by law, this right shall exist equally for Estonian citizens and
citizens of foreign states and stateless persons who are present in Estonia. (2) The state shall
encourage voluntary and local government social care. (3) Families with many children and the
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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5
disabled shall be entitled to special care by state and local authorities (Estonian Constitution:
§28).
The role of the state is also to guarantee equal opportunities, avoid discrimination and punish the
discriminators. State has to provide everybody with equal opportunities for education and basic
welfare. Many parties state among their goals to guarantee fair and proportional reward to
people’s input.
What is often missing from the manifestos of the political parties, the constitution or the general
public discussion – the understanding that inequality is also produced from people’s different
abilities. As indicated by Ronald Dworkin – being physically/mentally healthy or talented is a
result of a natural lottery (Kymlicka 2002, 78). It means that making positions open for
everybody does not mean that everybody can really apply for the positions. This is a broader
issue that will not be centre of a current paper and henceforth the focus will be on the justice
principles mentioned above.
2.2. Perceived inequality
People’s perceptions always have to be analyzed carefully and critically and there can be several
reasons why the society may be considered unequal. First of all, the inequality may be
structurally reproduced. This means that the existing system in a society does not guarantee
people justice principles that are promised by the state and expected by the people. Recalling the
justice principles mentioned earlier it can mean that people’s basic needs in a society are not
satisfied, equal liberties are not guaranteed, there is discrimination, no equal opportunity to get
ahead in life and the input of people is not fairly rewarded. If structural inequality exists then
everybody should notice that. Empirically it means that all or at least the majority of people in a
society should perceive high inequality – independent of their own socio-economic position.
The perceived inequality is often influenced by personal experiences. People who have a higher
socio-economic position usually think they have achieved their status in a fair competition. On
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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6
the other hand, people in a lower position in a society tend to think that the reasons for them to be
unsuccessful are restrictions created by the society and the structural system (Fave 1986, 476).
Whether this is a case can be found out empirically by looking at the correlation between socioeconomic status and perception of inequality. If the increase of socio-economic status causes less
perceived inequality and vice versa – if the decreasing socio-economic status is resulting in more
perceived inequality; an assumption can be made that perceived inequality depends on the
individual’s position in a society.
This in turn does not give any proof whether the society actually is following the fair rules. It
might mean that the society works in favor of some groups and leaves other people in a worse
situation. This insight is supported by the theory of Della Fave who argues that the legitimacy of
a system means that both, rich and poor perceive the society fair. In a way Fave gives an answer
to a paradoxical question – why people on lower position support the system that is not to their
benefit. The answer derives from the belief in proportionality – people should be rewarded
according to their input. Hence in a stable and legitimate society the perceived inequality should
be relatively small. The political system is reproduced because people on higher positions think
they deserve their income and status; at the same time people on lower positions think they
deserve their lower position and they support the existing system despite the fact it is against their
economic interests. It means that the inequality is legitimate and there exists a normative
approval of the way the system works in a society (Fave 1986, 479).
In empirical studies it would mean that the small perceived inequality by most or the majority of
the society indicates that the system in general is legitimate. The small perceived inequality
among successful people and large perceived inequality among less-advantaged can have more
than one meaning. It can be a sign that the society is working in only favor of certain groups or it
can also mean that the differences are just caused from natural tendency of people to look at
things from personal point of view.
Another critical point is that justice can be defined differently and questions can understood in
various ways. Perceived inequality depends on how people define inequality. Some people may
perceive large inequalities in a society even though the government is acting according to the
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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7
rules. This is possible when the rules of a society are not acceptable for a person. The
understanding of justice and equality may clash. Liberals can and often do argue against social
liberalism for being unequal at certain points (for example taking money from hard working
people and giving it to the ones that have chosen not to work so hard can be seen a injustice
among liberals) (Kymlicka 2002, 73). When talking about perceived inequality the term has to be
defined in order to avoid misunderstandings.
2.3. Cultural and historical context in Estonia
When talking about perceived inequality in Estonia the cultural, social and historical context has
to be taken into account. Perception of inequality in Estonia may be influenced by several factors.
One of the biggest contrasts compared to the Soviet era is the increased inequality. Now the
situation has radically changed and there are very rich people next to the very poor people. Even
if this inequality is a result of fair competition and ineluctable result of liberal capitalism people
are not used to it and it is hard for them to consider it fair. Hence there is a chance that the
perceived inequality in Estonia is overestimated because of the contrast-effect.
People often confuse equal society with egalitarian society. Equality does not necessarily mean
that all people are equal; it rather means that everybody has an equal possibility to get on a high
position in a society. That is often misunderstood and every kind of inequality in perceived
unfair.
There are other reasons for the perception to be biased in Estonia compared to other Western
states. For example the level of criticism is different. Studies conducted right after the collapse of
Soviet Union have shown that people were not objective in evaluating the circumstances they had
experienced during the Soviet times. The results were relatively surprising because they showed
that people did not feel that they had experienced the level of injustice that was perceived from
the outside world. This is probably due to the fact that people were relatively unfamiliar with
basic human right and hence they did not realize how bad they were treated in terms of human
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8
rights. The conditions that might seem intolerable to Western people were occasionally relatively
unnoticed by people actually living under these conditions (Csepeli et al. 1993, 868).
This indicates that justice is an illusion and people determine the definition and meaning of it.
People from former Soviet Union have a completely different background compared to people in
Western countries which in turn means their perceptions of equality and inequality can also be
different. What are basic needs, liberties, fairness and equality to one might not be basic needs,
liberties, fairness and equality to other people.
Considering the lack of justice during Soviet period and lack of knowledge about human rights
and justice principles in general leads to an assumption that people in Estonia (and other postSoviet countries) are somewhat modest in their expectations. The same conditions may be
considered less unequal by Estonian people than compared to people from countries with long
democratic tradition. It is known that during the Soviet era people were used to the fact that only
certain privileged people had the chance to get on higher positions. People also did not have the
political power. Therefore there were no equal opportunities to take part in the decision making.
Also the understanding of basic needs might differ to a large extent because Soviet people were
used to moderate living-conditions. The basic needs for Western people are much higher. It
means that Soviet people might be satisfied with living conditions that are unacceptable for
Western people.
The question can also approach from another angle. Post-Soviet people can occasionally turn out
to be more critical because their expectations with the change of the system were very high.
Western people are more experienced and know the advantages and disadvantages of a
democratic market-oriented society. They realize that the system is more about freedom and selfresponsibility. Estonian people have a higher tendency not to know how to use their freedom and
self-responsibility and account unsuccessful life as a result of unequal circumstances. Also
Estonian people are much more sensitive to the inequality.
Perceived inequality is an important factor in every society. It determines the legitimacy of the
system and the future of the society. Perceived inequality can have fundamental result. If people
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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9
believe the society unfair and people are not treated equally then if will produce disappointment.
No society can exist successfully without the support and satisfaction of the people. This is one of
the reasons to study perceived inequality by people – it represents the legitimacy of the system.
Perceived inequality will also undermine the morality of a society. There will be no belief in
meritocracy. This in turn will decrease people’s motivation to get higher education or work hard
because they would not be rewarded for that. This as a whole can cause deterioration of the
whole society.
If the justice principles promise are not seen existing in Estonia then the legitimacy of the system
as a whole cannot be very high. High perceived inequality is a direct threat to the political system
because it shows the lack of trust and support in it.
High perceived inequality cannot be only a result of a bad policy-making. It may also be a sign
that the general morality of a society is low. People themselves have an important role in
producing justice in a society. In a postmodern world there is not a welfare state any more – there
is a welfare society. The state alone cannot be responsible for everything and people themselves
have an important part in creating a welfare society. This consists in a certain kind of mentality
that relates to caring and social solidarity among people (Rodger 2000, 8). In the postmodern
thinking the notion that the state is responsible for welfare is replaced with the idea that
individuals, communities and families should be responsible for their own and others welfare
(Rodger 2000, 30). Perceived inequality may indicate that there is a lack of caring and altruism
among people.
As a legacy of Soviet times people in Estonia are often dependent on the state. They often have
the understanding that the state has the main responsibility of taking care of the people in a
society. State dependency is often criticized because it destroys social integration and is
undermining social relations and obligations which the family and the community have
traditionally had. Hence large perceived inequality might be an indication that people are too
state-dependent and they put too many expectations on the state.
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It is known that people in the beginning of the transformation were more excited about the
economical benefits brought about by the new system. The studies show that people were less
interested in the main democratic principles like freedom of speech and equal treatment of
everybody. Often people misunderstood the whole idea of the system change and were
disappointed when the expected economical prosperity did not follow. This has to be considered
when interpreting the perceived inequality.
3. Hypotheses
3.1. General perceptions of inequality in Estonia
Estonia is a developing country and taking over the Western principles is still in the process. The
transformation period that begun in the beginning of 1990’s brought about an economic anomaly
and economic uncertainty (Gijsberts 1999, 4). The period resulted in extensive inequality in a
society (Gijsberts 1999, 55). Inequality is a current issue in Estonia on everyday level. The main
discussion in the media and on political field is growing inequality among people. The increasing
inequality can be felt also in everyday life. On one hand it can be assumed that inequality is not
legitimate among people because it is so sudden and people have not learned to tolerate it. On the
other hand, Estonia is still struggling with economic difficulties and the society is not stable. That
leads to an assumption that the current system is not equally beneficial to everybody. These
arguments lead to the first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Estonia is perceived unequal by the majority of people.
3.2. Structural and individual perceptions of inequality
Perceived inequality can be determined by various factors. The society can be perceived unequal
from the structural point of view. This means that the structure of a society itself produces
inequality. This is more common to non-liberal societies and in democratic countries people are
the main decision makers. Since Estonia is in the process of transformation it is assumed that
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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11
inequality is caused by both – structural and individual factors. Thus the following hypothesizes
are expected to hold true:
Hypothesis 2. The inequality is perceived differently among groups in Estonian society.
Hypothesis. 2.1. Compared to man the perceived inequality is bigger among woman.
Hypothesis. 2.2. Compared to Estonians the perceived inequality is bigger among non-Estonians.
Hypothesis. 2.3. With the growing age the perceived inequality is increasing.
Hypothesis. 2.4. The bigger the support for state-intervention the bigger the perceived inequality.
Hypothesis. 2.5. The bigger the support for market-oriented society the smaller the perceived
inequality.
Hypothesis. 2.6. The ones seeing oneself as a winner of the transformation perceive less
inequality compared to the people seeing themselves as losers of the transformation.
Hypothesis. 2.7. The bigger the perceived income the less inequality is perceived.
4. Method
4.1. Data
The data for the current paper is from a survey conducted in 2005: “Social Justice in Estonian
society: changing perceptions of new generations”. The dataset includes 1000 respondents and it
represents the entire working-age population of Estonia.
4.2. Variables
Four factors are used as dependent variables in order to measure the attitudes toward the existing
stratification and distribution system:
- Equality of opportunity
- Reward for effort
- Reward for knowledge and skill
- Satisfaction of basic needs.
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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Independent variables are gender, nationality, age (generation), education, socio-political
orientation (state vs. market oriented), subjective evaluation on being a winner or the loser of the
transformation and subjective evaluation of the family income.
4.3. Methodology
The analysis will be based on the comparison of means; ANOVA method is being used for that
purpose. A correlation analysis is used to find out the strength of the relation between perception
of inequality and economic orientation of a person.
5. Findings
5.1. General results
The aim of the current paper is to analyze the perceived inequality in Estonia. For that purpose
the attitudes toward four statements are measured. The results show that Estonian society is
generally perceived unequal. Graph 1 gives an overview of how the attitudes toward the
statements are divided. The majority, in total 62% of the people find that there is no equal
opportunity to get ahead in life, the effort, knowledge and skill does not get fairly rewarded and
basic needs of people are not satisfied. Around 15% of the people strongly disagree with these
statements and think they do not apply to Estonian society.
In general for all of the questions the distribution of people agreeing, disagreeing or being neither
for nor against is relatively similar. Every fifth person does not have a clear opinion about these
questions and cannot agree nor disagree.
Less than 20% think that Estonian society is relatively fair – they agree that people have equal
opportunities to get ahead, people get rewarded for their effort, skill, knowledge and everybody’s
basic needs are satisfied. It is noteworthy that there are hardly any people who strongly agree
with the statements just mentioned (1-3%). Hence every fifth person has a rather positive
perception of Estonian society and tends to believe that these statements apply but the agreement
is not strong and there is room for doubts.
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Perceived social inequality in Estonia
13
Comparison of the questions indicates that the biggest percentage of agreement is with the
statement that there are equal opportunities in Estonia. The biggest percentage of people strongly
disagreeing are with the statement that the basic needs are satisfied in Estonia (18% of the people
are certain that this is not true).
It can be concluded that Estonia is perceived unequal by the majority of the people and thus the
first hypothesis of the paper is confirmed.
Graph 1. Perceived inequality in Estonian society in 2005, N=1000, (% )
Equality of opportunity
13
49
Reward for effort
13
49
Reward for knowledge
and skill
14
48
Satisfaction of basic
needs
18
0%
Strongly disagree
Disagree
17
24
40%
14
19
60%
Neither for nor against
17
80%
Agree
3
12
23
44
20%
17
1
1
1
100%
Strongly agree
5.2. Perception of inequality among groups
In addition to the general results the perceived inequality among different groups in the following
section is studied in order to find out whether the perceptions are dependent on individual
characteristics or is the inequality structural (dependent on the system). Table 1 gives an
overview of how different groups perceive the inequality in Estonian society – the average mean
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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14
of different questions and among groups is presented in the table. The results are described
below.
Generally man and women tend to disagree with the statements about equality in Estonia. Both,
man and woman, tend to disagree equally that there are equal opportunities to get ahead in life
and people’s effort gets fairly rewarded. There are different understandings between male and
female of whether the knowledge and skill gets rewarded and whether people’s basic needs are
satisfied. The results show that women agree much less to these statements than men do.
The perception of Estonians and non-Estonians differs in three questions out of four. Irrespective
of the nationality the attitudes toward the statements are generally negative and people tend to
disagree that the justice principles exist in Estonia. There are no differences between Estonians
and non-Estonians in the perceived equality of opportunity. This indicates that non-Estonians do
not feel that they have fewer opportunities than Estonians do. On the other hand, non-Estonians
have a more negative perception about the satisfaction of basic needs – they believe less that
minimal standard of living is guaranteed to everybody. Then again, Estonians believe much less
than non-Estonians that people’s effort, knowledge and skill gets rewarded. The results indicate
that there is a somewhat different perception of inequality in Estonia between Estonians and nonEstonians. It seems that Estonians believe more in the satisfaction of basic needs and nonEstonians rather believes that input is rewarded.
Age is an important determinant of the perceived inequality because the differences occur within
every question. Thus belonging to a certain group is an important factor in determining whether
the society is perceived fair or unfair. The main reason is the youngest generation that differs
from all the other groups to a large extent. The youngest group perceives clearly less inequality
compared to other age-groups. They are the most positive about equal opportunity to get ahead in
life which is common to young people without personal experiences.
The result in general show that perception of the inequality increases with the growing age. There
is one exception; the group born in 1946-1961 is more negative than the oldest generation (born
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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15
in 1929-1945). People born in 1946-1961 can be considered to be the least satisfied with the
current political, economical and social system.
Another factor that was studied is the political-economical orientation of a person. More
precisely, whether a person supports the state oriented or market oriented society. The results
show that people that are against the state involvement in general are also more optimistic about
the equal opportunity and the satisfaction of basic needs. At the same time the belief in the fair
reward of the effort, knowledge and skill is not determined whether a person supports state
involvement or not.
Whether a person is for or against the market-oriented society is determining more and there are
differences in perceived inequality in every question. The ones against market-oriented society
perceive inequality much bigger compared to the people who support market-oriented society.
Whether a person sees himself a winner or a loser of a transformation also seems to be an
important determinant. The results are different for every question and winners, losers and neither
of them have all a different understanding about inequality in Estonia. As was expected the losers
have the most negative attitudes and their perceived inequality is much higher. The winners are
less negative about the questions. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that winners of the transformation
still tend to disagree that there are equal opportunities or that people’s input gets rewarded and
basic needs are satisfied in Estonia.
In the study people were also asked how they evaluate their family income. The result show that
people who said their income is less than they actually would perceive higher inequality. The
ones claiming their income to be normal or bigger than they need were less-negative about the
statements and perceive less inequality.
In total the results generally support the hypotheses posed above and it can be concluded that
indeed woman, older people, people for state and against market-oriented society, losers of the
transformation and poor people are the ones perceiving more inequality in Estonian society. The
results do not entirely support the hypothesis about Estonians and non-Estonians. Estonians have
Marii Paškov
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
16
more negative feelings about the reward for effort compared to non-Estonians. The latter at the
same time believes less in the satisfaction of basic needs.
Table 1. The perceived inequality among different groups in Estonian society in 2005 (the table
presents the means and the significance level)
People in Estonian
society have an equal
opportunity to get
ahead in life
People’s effort is
fairly rewarded
in
Estonian
society
People’s knowledge
and skill are fairly
rewarded in Estonian
society
People’s
basic
needs are satisfied
in Estonian society
Mean
-,52
Sig.
Mean
-,62
Sig.
Mean
-,58
Sig.
Mean
-,60
Sig.
Mean
Gender
Male
Female
-,46
-,58
,06
-,57
-,67
,10
-,52
-,64
,04
-,51
-,68
,01
Nationality
Estonian
Non-Estonian
-,52
-,51
,81
-,68
-,45
,00
-,65
-,39
,00
-,56
-,72
,03
Generation
1 (1929-1945)
2 (1946-1961)
3 (1962-1973)
4 (1974-1980)
5 (1981-1989)
-,65
-,69
-,49
-,48
-,01
,00
-,65
-,75
-,69
-,53
-,30
,00
-,62
-,69
-,61
-,54
-,32
,03
-,73
-,76
-,51
-,35
-,31
,00
State involvement
Against
Neither for nor against
In support
-,31
-,44
-,60
,00
-,49
-,65
-,65
,09
-,49
-,61
-,60
,32
-,41
-,46
-,67
,00
Market oriented society
Against
Neither for nor against
In support
-,64
-,53
-,21
,00
-,69
-,61
-,43
,00
-,69
-,49
-,38
,00
-,70
-,51
-,42
,00
Winners-losers
Loser
Neither winner nor loser
Winner
-,88
-,57
-,34
,00
-,86
-,66
-,44
,00
-,78
-,64
-,43
,00
-,97
-,67
-,36
,00
Perceived family income
Smaller than is needed
As much as needed
Bigger than is needed
-,58
-,27
-,25
,00
-,70
-,29
-,25
,00
-,66
-,28
-,13
,00
-,71
-,16
,00
,00
Significance level: p<0,05
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
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17
5.3. Correlation between political orientation and perceived inequality
The society might be perceived unequal for several reasons. One of the reasons is that the society
actually is unequal or the existing system is not supported by people in general and this causes
negative attitudes. In order to find out if the society is really unfair or are the negative attitudes
caused by the non agreement with the political system a correlation analysis is conducted. The
aim of the correlation analysis is to find out how strong is the relationship between political
orientation and the perceived inequality.
The results show that there is a negative correlation between support for state intervention and
perception of inequality. Thus the bigger the support for state intervention the less is the society
perceived equal and fair. At the same time there is positive correlation between market-oriented
political system and perception of inequality. Thus the bigger the support for market-oriented
society the more the society is perceived as equal and fair. Only the correlation between stateoriented system and statement that people’s knowledge and skill gets fairly rewarded is not
statistically significant.
These results indicate that the more a person supports the new market oriented system the more
they believe that people in Estonia have equal opportunities to get ahead, basic needs are satisfied
and effort, knowledge and skill gets rewarded. The opposite applies to people who support state
intervention – they tend to think that there are no equal opportunities to get ahead in life, basic
needs are not satisfied and input does not get rewarded.
Marii Paškov
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
18
Table 2. The correlation between socio-economical orientation and perceived inequality in
Estonian society in 2005.
Support for
state-oriented
system
Support for
marketoriented system
People in Estonian
society have an equal
opportunity to get
ahead in life
People’s effort
fairly rewarded
Estonian society
Correlation
Sig.
Correlation
-,118
,00
,175
,00
is
in
People’s knowledge
and skill are fairly
rewarded in Estonian
society
People’s basic needs
are
satisfied
in
Estonian society
Sig.
Correlation
Sig.
Correlation
Sig.
-,067
,04
-,043
,19
-,111
,00
,122
,00
,144
,00
,120
,00
Significance level: p<0,05
6. Conclusions and discussion
The goal of the paper was to analyze the situation in Estonia and to measure perceived inequality.
Estonia is one of the post-socialist countries that has gone through important changes within the
recent history. The paper has centered attention on the main justice principles that have
influenced and been accepted by the modern societies. The same principles are theoretically
accepted by the Estonian government and people since these statements can be found in the
manifestos of political parties and the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia. Whether and to
what extent these principles are actually exististing in Estonian society was one of the questions
to be answered in this paper. In contrast to many studies about objective inequality current paper
aims at finding out the subjective inequality. This method is used in order to get a better
understanding of people’s well-being and satisfaction with the social system in Estonia – whether
the transformation has achieved its initial goal and justice principles common to other Western
states are applied.
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
Marii Paškov
19
As was expected in the beginning – Estonian society is in general perceived unequal. It means
that the majority of people do not believe that there are equal opportunities to get ahead in life or
the input gets fairly rewarded and the basic needs of everybody are satisfied.
There are several ways to interpret these results. First of all, negative feedback to the statements
used in the study is rather natural because people in general tend to be skeptical and critical
toward stratification and distribution issues. These perceptions are strongly amplified by the
media that constantly presents figures and news about the growing inequality. Inequality is an
important topic in the everyday life in Estonia and hence people might tend to overestimate the
amount of actual inequality.
The high perceived inequality might also be a result of a contrast-effect. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union people had high expectations toward the future but negative consequences were
forgotten. Although inequality is a normal part of liberal societies people in Estonia have not
learned to accept it and to consider it legitimate.
Another explanation could be that Estonian society is indeed unequal and people are
discriminated – they do not have equal opportunities to get ahead in life, their work and education
does not get fairly paid and there are people whose basic needs are not satisfied. This cannot be
entirely true because there is no unanimity among people. There is a considerable amount of
people that perceive society relatively fair. The society cannot be declared entirely unjust also
because there are differences of perception among groups. This is a sign that people have a
different understanding of Estonian society.
The comparison of the perceived inequality among groups shows that there are different
understandings depending on individual’s position in a society. The general conclusion is – the
higher the socio-economic status of a person the smaller the perceived inequality and the lower
the socio-economic status the bigger the perceived inequality. It can be argued that there is no
clear dominant ideology in Estonian society and people’s perceptions are more derived from
personal experiences. It is known that the system is stable and being reproduced when people
from upper and lower classes unanimously agree that the society is fair. This phenomenon cannot
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
Marii Paškov
20
be seen in Estonia and poor people rather blame the structure of the society than themselves for
their misfortune.
The perceived inequality among people on lower positions in a society can also be seen as a
legacy of the Soviet era because there was a negative association with being rich. People were
used to think that becoming rich in an honest way is not possible. This understanding might affect
people’s perceptions until now. They might think that the ones very rich have not achieved their
position in an honest way and it rather depends on the connections they have with powerful
people.
Perceived inequality may be resulting from many determinants at the same time – self-interest
and negative association with wealth. People on higher positions have a more positive perception
of the society because they directly benefit from the current system. The opposite applies to the
people that are less successful – they see the society in a negative light since it does not work to
their advantage. Hence they blame the society and think there are no equal opportunities to
become wealthy.
Even though there are differences among groups it cannot be ignored that the society is still
perceived unequal by the majority of people – the ones on higher and lower positions in a society.
People that are successful still claim that there is no equal opportunity for everybody, people do
not get rewarded according to their input and even the basic needs of some people are not
satisfied. Regardless of their own position the majority of people in Estonia think that the society
is unequal.
Perceived inequality leads to deeper controversies in a society. The results indicate that people do
not feel that the transformation process has brought about a fair society. The Constitutional law
and political parties are promising to guarantee equal opportunities to everybody, to satisfy basic
needs, to reward people for their input but the people do not see this happening in Estonia. This
in turn produces lack of trust and lack of legitimacy toward the state and the politicians. This
conclusion is also supported by the studies that show people’s disappointment toward the state
and low voting numbers.
Perceived social inequality in Estonia
Marii Paškov
21
High perceived inequality can also be a result of big expectations to the state. Whenever people
see poverty they mistakenly see it as a fault of the state. Whereas the idea of the post-modern
welfare states is mainly that the people and communities are responsible for the well-being of one
another. High perceived inequality can be seen as an indication of lack of caring mentality in
Estonian society.
On the whole there are many possible explanations for the perceived inequality in Estonian
society. Taking the results together it can be concluded that the transformation process has not
ended because no matter what are the reasons people in general do not have a good feeling about
the existing system. This study does not explain exactly whether the inequalities are based on the
structural reasons or people just have not learned to accept the justice principles. Nevertheless the
society is perceived unequal and it affects people’s well-being and satisfaction with the system.
In the further studies it would be interesting to find out what are the reasons for perceived
inequality. At the moment it can be concluded that the main justice principles are not seen
working in Estonian society.
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