Losers in Market Transition: The Unemployed, the Retired, and the Disabled

Verhoeven, Johannes Theodorus Martinus; Jansen, Wiebren; Dessens, Jos

doi:10.1093/esr/jcn037

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…For instance, older individuals were more likely to compare themselves to the period before the start of the transition at the end of the 1980s, while younger individuals were more likely to compare themselves with those living in Western Europe. These findings correspond to research on winners and losers of post-communist transition which suggests that the age of individuals was an important aspect of adaptability to new politico-economic conditions (Verhoeven et al 2008). Younger people more easily fitted in free market environment, expressed entrepreneur talents, acquired new skills such as English comprehension, travelled abroad, and developed cross-national social networks (Roberts 2009).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Which socio-economic comparison groups do individuals choose and why?

Gugushvili

2020

European Societies

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Socioeconomic comparison among individuals is the process by which individuals assess their own socioeconomic position in relation to others. In this study we identify which are the most salient groups in socioeconomic comparisons among individuals, clarify the role of individual-level characteristics in the selection of specific comparison groups, and test if contextual factors explain variation in individuals' choices regarding their socioeconomic comparison groups. We utilise a unique data-set that allows the choice of socioeconomic comparison groups in 34 countries in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia to be investigated. The results indicate that individuals make sociocomparisons not only with close groups, such as friends and neighbours, but also within their own families, cross-nationally, and over time. Multilevel and multivariable and analyses suggest that individuals' demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and the extent of their social trust are significantly linked with the selection of specific comparison groups. We also find that the distance from the city of Frankfurt in Germany of countries where individuals live is an important factor in why people compare their own socioeconomic position with those who live in Western Europe.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Which socio-economic comparison groups do individuals choose and why?

Gugushvili

2020

European Societies

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“…Evidence from studies of critical life events would therefore suggest that people likewise followed different trajectories of adjustment after reunification. Indeed, it is widely accepted that the collapse of the former Communist states of Eastern Europe produced both'winners ' and'losers' (e.g., Brainerd, 1998;Verhoeven et al, 2008; also see Gürtzgen & Diegmann, 2020), and one can hence assume that reunification was associated with improvements in life satisfaction for some people, and declines for others.…”

Section: Life Satisfaction After German Reunification and Other Critical Life Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneity in Trajectories of Life Satisfaction After Reunification: The Role of Individual Resources and Life Stage in Former East Germany

et al. 2021

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For people living in the former East Germany, reunification with the former West Germany fundamentally transformed the sociopolitical system and most domains of everyday life. Previous research has revealed temporal shifts in average life satisfaction after reunification in the former East German population as a whole, but so far little is known about heterogeneity in patterns of adjustment within the population. Building on evidence of considerable diversity in trajectories of adjustment to other critical life events, in the current study we use longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and growth mixture models to identify typical yet distinct trajectories of life satisfaction among former East Germans, covering the period just before reunification and four years thereafter. We identified four trajectories: continuously satisfied (experienced by 17% of the sample), upward adjusters (24%), downward adjusters (34%), and continuously dissatisfied (25%). Results of logistic regression analyses indicate that the propensity to follow a particular trajectory was strongly predicted by an individual’s baseline economic (employment, but not income), socio-relational (loneliness) and personal (education, satisfaction with health) resources. Whereas former East Germans with more resources just prior to reunification were more likely to maintain high or increase in life satisfaction, their peers with fewer resources were more apt to either maintain low or decrease in life satisfaction. People in their mid-twenties through mid-fifties (i.e., prime working age) at the time of reunification were also more likely to maintain low life satisfaction. Accordingly, reunification affected the unfolding of individual lives differently.

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“…The reforms of the welfare state introduced during the first phase of the post‐communist transformation unevenly affected diverse social groups within each country as the income of pensioners in CEE was more protected than the income of unemployed people (Verhoeven, Jansen, & Dessens, ) or families with children in Poland (Golinowska, ). Another distinct feature of the welfare state policies during the first years of the post‐communist transformation in some CEE countries was relatively easy access to early retirement and disability benefits for the working‐age population.…”

Section: Pensions and Framing Of Long‐term Care Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

How do pension and healthcare systems frame long‐term care policy? Comparison of the Czech Republic and Poland

Łuczak

2018

Soc Policy Adm

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This article compares changes in long-term care (LTC) policies in the Czech Republic and Poland. The article challenges the view that countries from Central and Eastern Europe can be treated as a homogenous group with regard to LTC. To account for the dissimilarity between the countries, the article adopts Ranci and Pavolini's (2015, p. 274) recent recommendation that changes in LTC policies must be analyzed in the context of reforms of traditional and more expensive social policies, such as pensions and healthcare. Using the approach of political institutionalism, the article argues that these two countries' pension and healthcare systems established different opportunity structures and strategic preferences for change in LTC policy. Consequently, the persistent difference between the two countries over the past decade is explained by how their pension and healthcare systems frame LTC policy. The article also finds that "functional equivalents" to social care programs that are instituted either in pensions (i.e., lowering the retirement age, which impacts the supply of informal care) or in healthcare (i.e., increasing the availability of nursing homes) should be included in the analysis of LTC policy development.

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Losers in Market Transition: The Unemployed, the Retired, and the Disabled

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Which socio-economic comparison groups do individuals choose and why?

Which socio-economic comparison groups do individuals choose and why?

Heterogeneity in Trajectories of Life Satisfaction After Reunification: The Role of Individual Resources and Life Stage in Former East Germany

How do pension and healthcare systems frame long‐term care policy? Comparison of the Czech Republic and Poland

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