Subjective Mobility after 1989: Do People Feel a Social and Economic Improvement or Relative Deprivation?

Abstract

Subjective judgments of social & economic mobility in Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, & the Czech Republic are investigated in an analysis of data gathered by the international comparative study, Social Stratification in Eastern Europe after 1989. It is found that in all 6 countries, a sense of improved social position is correlated with social characteristics such as a lower age group & higher level education & profession, while a sense of declining social position is linked with the inverse of these characteristics. However, the sense of social deprivation does seem to be less in the Czech Republic than in other countries; factors contributing to this are identified.