Rebuilding Walls: Market Transition and Social Mobility in the Post-Socialist Societies of Europe

Abstract

Abstract:We ask whether the transition from socialism to the market is consequential for social mobility, and, by implication, the permeability of class structures. While the short-term effects of market transition on patterns of social mobility have been documented for a small number of countries, we are able to examine the long-term effects of market transition for a group of 13 central and eastern European (CEE) countries. Only in the longer term can we properly appreciate the settled effects of transition on the distribution of resources, the organization of class and economic structures, and the transmission of inequalities across generations. We use data drawn from nationally representative cross-national surveys of CEE countries to compare patterns of social mobility in the early 1990s with those in the late 2000s. We find a significant decline in relative social mobility between the two periods and show that this decline is a consistent feature of mobility patterns across the region. We argue that changes in the institutions that regulate the transfer of capital across generations are likely to explain why the move from socialism to the market is associated with declining levels of social fluidity.

The Effect of the Post-Socialist Transition on Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Evidence from German Unification

“…Our findings suggest that the results of the study by Kesler (2003) that showed little difference in IEO between East and West Germany before unification and no increase IEO in East Germany after unification are likely to be false negatives that are due to the very small sample size used in her study. By contrast, our findings are in line with studies from other post-socialist countries that have shown an increase in the intergenerational transmission of inequality after the post-socialist transition (Gerber and Hout, 2004, Lippényi and Gerber, 2016, and Bukodi and Goldthorpe, 2010Jackson and Evans, 2017). This is likely to be a result of the fact that the main institutional changes in the educational system and economy that occurred under statesocialism in East Germany were common to most state-socialist countries at the time.…”

“…Kesler's finding that IEO did not increase with German unification contrasts with studies of other post-socialist countries, which generally find an increase in the intergenerational transmission of inequality after the post-socialist transition (see Gerber and Hout, 2004, on Russia, Lippényi and Gerber, 2016, and Bukodi and Goldthorpe, 2010 and the cross-national study by Jackson and Evans, 2017). However, as discussed in further detail below, these studies are themselves limited in that they tend to only focus on one or more (post-)socialist countries, and thus lack a control case that would permit them to identify the observed over-time changes in inequality as resulting from the post-socialist transition per se, as opposed to other over-time trends at the time that are not primarily related to the post-socialist transition.…”

“…As was the case for most other former member states of the soviet bloc, the East German 'shock therapy' was more shock than therapy and led to a deep economic recession that was accompanied by a vast increase in unemployment, economic insecurity and income inequality (Hunt, 2008;Hauser and Becker, 2000;. Given the likely rigidifying consequences of economic recessions for IEO (see Jackson and Evans, 2017), the crisis may have reinforced the effects of the educational restructuring on IEO in East Germany after unification. In our analysis, we therefore examine both the short-run effect of German unification on IEO, which may be magnified by the effects of the economic recession, and the long-run effect, which can be taken to reflect the institutional changes that occurred with German unification.…”

Post‐socialist transition and intergenerational educational mobility in Kyrgyzstan

“…For a low-income country that saw a sharp decline in the living standards of its population and a rise in income inequality, this outcome is surprising. We conclude that the dynamics of intergenerational mobility of education in Kyrgyzstan is similar to other post-socialist countries (Jackson and Evans, 2017); however, the degree of intergenerational mobility is particularly high compared to both transition and low-income countries (Appendix Table A1).…”

Expanding Inequality: Trends in Educational Stratification during China’s Market Transition

“…On the one hand, inequality can be assumed to increase as socialist policies that favour the working classes are replaced by market-based allocation. On the other hand, social stratification is far from absent in socialist economies, and marketization and related economic developments may bring new opportunities for meritocratic advancement, in line with the predications from modernization theory (Jackson and Evans 2017). Empirical evidence suggests that educational inequality is likely to increase in the immediate aftermath of the transition, although the medium-to long-term effects remain unclear.…”