Estonian Human Development Report

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Figure 6.2.4. Relationship between the objective and subjective indicators of social capital Trust Figure 6.2.5. Absence of social exclusion, satisfaction and feeling of happiness Satisfaction and feeling of happiness 2,000 1,000 ,000 -1,000 2,00000 1,00000 ,00000 -1,00000 Russia -2,000 -3,00000 -2,00000 -1,00000 ,00000 1,00000 2,00000 Governance quality Latvia Hungary Russia Ukraine Poland Slovakia Spain ESTONIA Finland Sweden Belgium Ireland Austria United Kingdom Slovenia France Germany Portugal Romania Norway Sweden The Netherlands Denmark Finland Switzerland Belgium Ireland Spain Austria ESTONIA United Kingdom Germany France Slovakia Slovenia Hungary Romania Latvia Poland Bulgaria Portugal Denmark Switzerland Norway The Netherlands Ukraine Bulgaria -2,00000 -2,000 -1,000 ,000 1,000 2,000 Absence of social exclusion In some countries with similar objective situations, the difference in subjective assessments is quite large. For instance, in Estonia, there is much greater satisfaction with the human capital aspect of well-being than in Bulgaria and Ukraine, which are in more or less the same situation. Estonia’s objective indicator is reduced by short average life expectancy (for more about this, see Chapters 1 and 2 of this report), but people do not think about this when assessing the state of their own health. The difference of the positions of Finland and Portugal are especially drastic, where the subjective assessment given to similar objective situations differs by more than two and a half standard deviations. One reason for this may be that, according to the European Social Survey, the length of formal education in Portugal is only 7.4 years, which is the minimal value for the indicator and significantly below the average (12 years). Therefore, the questionnaire’s respondents have apparently perceived problems with the availability of education. Social capital indicators have not been used very often when analyzing well-being. At the same time, this is a significant aspect that definitely affects people’s feelings and their assessment of their situation. In this treatment, the government organization indicator has been used as the objective measure of social capital, which was obtained as a result of a study conducted by the World Bank. In this study, the following six aspects for describing governance were collected and synthesized into a general indicator (Kaufmann et al, 2007): 1) Voice and Accountability measure the citizens’ ability to express their opinions, participate in elections and form associations; 2) Political Stability and Absence of Violence measure the perceived ability of the government to cope with destabilizing groups; 3) Government Effectiveness expresses the availability of services and confidence that the state will be able to fulfil its obligations; 4) Regulatory Quality measures the capacity of the government to work out and implement regulations that enable the development of the private sector; 5) Rule of Law indicates to what extent people are willing to comply with established rules, how well contracts are adhered to, and also reflects the activities of the police and courts; 6) Control of Corruption expresses the power of public authority to inhibit corruption and the extent to which public power is used for personal interests. The aforementioned indicators describe the quality of the activities of the institutions that organize societal life. Therefore, they can be interpreted as objective indicators of social capital at the society’s macro level. The generally recognized output of social capital is trust. In order to obtain the general confidence indicator, we synthesized the assessment taken from the European Social Survey regarding other people, parliaments, laws, politicians and political parties. The value of the coefficient showing the correlation between the objective and subjective aspects of social capital was 0.85. The placement of countries based on these two indicators is shown in Figure 6.2.4. The general picture is already familiar: Denmark and Finland are distinguished by positive assessments, and those lagging behind include Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. One can also note that in the countries with below-average indicators, governmental organization varies to a greater extent, and in countries with above-average indicators, confidence fluctuates to a greater degree. Estonia is closer to the average of the sample than in the previous figure. Heretofore, both of Estonia’s indicators were below the sample average, whereas the confidence indicator was slightly above average. One circumstance that amplifies the subjective perception of well-being is the absence of social exclusion (connection with society). Social cohesion helps to form social capital and enables one to collect human capital and use it effectively. It is quite difficult to find objective indicators to measure cohesion. Generally, poverty and long-term unemployment are considered to be indicators that at least indirectly reflect social exclusion. Unfortunately, identical poverty and long-term unemployment indicators did not exist for all the countries in our sample. Therefore in order to describe alienation, we chose the ratio of unemployment in the labour force (an indirect indicator of the opportunity to use human capital), the probability that a newborn’s prospective life span is less than 60 years (indirect indicator of the opportunity to create human capital) and added the assessment that the state should do some- | 128
Table 6.2.2. Relationship between the general objective and subjective well-being indicators with the Human Development Index Figure 6.2.6. Relationship between general objective and subjective indicators for well-being Subjective perception of well-being Objective indicators Wealth Human capital 2,00000 1.00000 .00000 -1.00000 Romania Russia 0.944 0.895 ESTONIA Slovakia Poland Latvia Slovenia Subjective indicators Satisfaction with the economic situation Satisfaction with health and education Denmark Finland Switzerland Norway Sweden The Netherlands Belgium Ireland Austria Spain Portugal Hungary France Germany United Kingdom Ukraine Bulgaria -2.00000 -2.000 -1.000 .000 1.000 2.000 Objective well-being thing to even out income differences (indirect indicator of prevailing inequality). Hereinafter, we will use the component scores for social exclusion with the opposite sign as the cohesion indicator. To obtain the generalized indicator of the emotional component of well-being, we combined the assessments of life satisfaction and the feeling of happiness. The correlation coefficient for the indicators for the emotional aspect of well-being in 0.86 and the placement of the countries based on their indicators is shown in Figure 6.2.5. Since the cohesion indicator that we have constructed is not perfect, the picture is better than expected. Portugal, which already stood out in the previous figures with its lower positions compared to the other “old” European Union member states, also ranks below average according to both these indicators. However, we see relatively large differences in objective and subjective assessments, especially among the countries that lag behind. Finally, we combined the aforementioned indicators for the various aspects of well-being into general objective and subjective indicators. A general objective indicator for well-being was obtained by combining the health, human capital, government organization and cohesion aspects. To obtain a general subjective indicator for well-being, we combined the following subject components of subjective well-being into one composite indicator: the indicators for satisfaction with the economic situation, satisfaction with education and health, confidence as well as life satisfaction and a feeling of happiness. The mutual correlations of the indicators describing the general aspects of well-being were all over 0.73. Since the most popular indicator for the evaluation of a country’s developmental level is the Human Development Index, we checked the correlation of the aforementioned objective and subjective indicators with this indicator (see Table 6.2.2.). Therefore, the Human Development Index also essentially reflects well-being. Based on the methodology that was constructed, it can be expected that the correlation is strong with the objective indicator, and the correlation with the indicator that reflects a subjective perception of well-being is also very strong. As a result of the cluster analysis made on the basis of the countries’ individual aspects of objective and subjective well-being, two groups of countries were differentiated. The first group included 14 countries that were better developed based on both objective and subjective well-being and 10 countries with lower levels of development (see Figure 6.2.6.). The figure shows the placement of the countries based on the general objective and subjective indicators for well-being, whereas the countries that belong to the other cluster are written in capital letters. As we can see, as a rule, the countries with lower objective well-being also have lower subjective indicators, while higher objective indicators of well-being are related to higher subjective well-being. Yet, among both groups we can see fluctuations between countries. In the cluster of countries with higher levels of well-being, based on the assessments of objective indicators, Norway is in a better position and Slovenia and Spain are in relatively worse positions. However, the subjective perception of well-being is higher in Denmark and lower in Germany. In the group of countries with lower wellbeing levels, the value of the objective indicator is highest in Portugal. However, Russia stands out for its very low level of objective well-being, but based on the subjective indicator, it lies almost in the middle of its group. Subjectively, of the people who filled out the European Social Survey questionnaire, those in Ukraine gave their well-being the lowest assessment, while those in Estonia the highest. As shown in the figure, the subjective assessment of well-being in Estonia is significantly higher than in Hungary, which has an objective indicator similar to Estonia. At the same time, Estonia’s subjective well-being level is approximately as high as in Germany, despite the great difference in the value of the general objective indicators of these two countries. It is interesting to analyze the ranking of the countries based on the differences in their subjective and objective assessments (Figure 6.2.7.). The countries above the median line in Figure 6.2.7. are the ones where the subjective perception of well-being is higher than the objective indicators. The countries below the line are the ones where satisfaction with well-being is lower than one might assume from the objective well-being indicators (let’s recall that the subjective assessment of well-being originate from the 2006 European Social Survey). The placement of the countries starts from the ones with the greatest satisfaction. Some of the results are quite surprising and hard to justify. 0.901 0.850 Governance quality 0.907 Trust in people and institutions 0.804 Absence of social exclusion General objective indicator of well-being 0.829 Satisfaction and feeling of happiness 0.887 General subjective indicator of wellbeing 0.947 0.881 129 |
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Estonian Human Development Report
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Estonian Human Development Report T
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4.2. Ethnic differentiations in sat
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Preface This year, the Estonian Hum
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CHAPTER 1 Estonian Human Developmen
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Figure 1.1.3. Life expectancy in co
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Figure 1.2.2. Life expectancy at bi
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to reality. The greatest inaccuracy
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Figure 1.2.9. Internal migration ev
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12. Marksoo, A. 1992. “Dynamics o
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Table 1.3.1. PISA 2006 study result
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Table 1.3.2. Number of students in
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1.4. The gross domestic product and
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Figure 1.4.3. Estonian GDP (right a
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1.5. Changes in the Estonian Human
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2.2. Health of Estonian residents i
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Table 2.2.4. Differences in life ex
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Figure 2.4.1. Healthy life years of
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Figure 2.4.4. Various accidents, tr
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2.5. Lifestyle and behaviour as a s
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Figure 2.5.5. Smoking in Estonia in
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Figure 2.6.1. Overview of the compo
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Table 2.6.2. Use of specialized med
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dren. The majority of services are
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Figure 2.8.2. How much a health dis
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2.10. Policy recommendations aimed
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CHAPTER 3 Quality of life and life
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Table 3.2.1. Characteristics of liv
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Table 3.2.4. An assessment of the e
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Figure 3.2.4. Difference in the job
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Table 3.2.6. Agreement with stateme
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Figure 3.3.1. Satisfaction with lif
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Figure 3.3.4. Percentage of people
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Figure 3.4.1. Types of quality of l
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Figure 3.5.1. Percentage of teenage
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Figure 3.5.4. Percentage of respond
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Arieh A., Conti C., Kutsar D., Nicg
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Figure 3.6.2. Subjective quality of
Page 80 and 81: Pieper, A. Sixsmith, Care related q
Page 82 and 83: Figure 3.7.1. The placement of Euro
Page 84 and 85: Figure 4.2.1. Life satisfaction by
Page 86 and 87: Table 4.2.1. Factors forming genera
Page 88 and 89: Annexes Annex 4.2.1. Socio-demograp
Page 90 and 91: Figure 4.3.1. Changes in the assess
Page 92 and 93: Figure 4.3.4. Attitudes of the Esto
Page 94 and 95: olds considered themselves to be pa
Page 96 and 97: Table 4.4.3. Agreement of the Russi
Page 98 and 99: Table 4.5.2. The prospects of non-E
Page 100 and 101: Figure 4.5.4. Certainty of Estonian
Page 102 and 103: mote equal opportunities. At the (e
Page 104 and 105: CHAPTER 5 Quality of life in a cons
Page 106 and 107: Figure 5.2.1. GDP and AIC per capit
Page 108 and 109: Figure 5.2.3. Distribution of consu
Page 110 and 111: Figure 5.2.4. Indexes of environmen
Page 112 and 113: Table 5.3.1. Comparison of countrie
Page 114 and 115: Figure 5.3.3. Comparison of types o
Page 116 and 117: Table 5.3.5. Connections between po
Page 118 and 119: Table 5.4.1. Who and what are the f
Page 120 and 121: Table 5.4.3. Young people’s asses
Page 122 and 123: Figure 5.4.6. Time spent on the con
Page 124 and 125: Table 5.4.6. The perception of prob
Page 126 and 127: 5.6. Summary To briefly summarize t
Page 128 and 129: Table 6.2.1. Objective and subjecti
Page 132 and 133: Figure 6.2.7. Difference between th
Page 134 and 135: Figure 6.3.1. GDP, government secto
Page 136 and 137: Figure 6.3.3. Employed 15-74-year-o
Page 138 and 139: Figure 6.3.8. Percentage of social
Page 140 and 141: References 1. Aaviksoo, A., G. Paat
Page 142 and 143: Figure 6.4.1. Labour market flexibi
Page 144 and 145: Figure 6.4.3. Creations of jobs ind
Page 146 and 147: Figure 6.4.5. Public expenditures o
Page 148 and 149: Figure 6.4.6. Ratio of the particip
Page 150 and 151: 6.5. Cities as development engines
Page 152 and 153: Table 6.5.2. Existence of developme
Page 154 and 155: have been underfinanced or are not
Page 156 and 157: Table 7.1. Factors that favour and
Page 158 and 159: Table 7.2. Potential economic devel
Page 160 and 161: Authors Chapter 1 Ene-Margit Tiit,
Page 162 and 163: Margit Keller (PhD) is a Senior Res
Page 164 and 165: Special prizes Estonian Human Devel
Page 166 and 167: Estonian Human Development Report H
Page 168 and 169: Estonian Human Development Report H
Page 170 and 171: Estonian Human Development Report T
Page 172 and 173: Honorable mentions Estonian Human D
Page 174 and 175: Estonian Human Development Report P
Page 176 and 177: Estonian Human Development Report A
Page 178: Estonian Human Development Report T
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Estonian Human Development Report

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