What is Social Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe? Stephen Whitefield [e-mail] and Matthew Loveless [e-mail] EUREQUAL: http://eurequal.politics.ox.ac.uk/

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What 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• Work in Progress Please DO NOT CITE

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What 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

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The 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
  

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A 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).

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The 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

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Issues 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?

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The 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

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The 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

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Table 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
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Figure 1. Percentage contribution of each factor
loading to factor as a whole (pooled and by
country)
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What 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

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Table 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
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What 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

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Conclusions

• 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.