Estonian Human Development Report

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Table 7.1. Factors that favour and hinder our recovery from the economic crisis as seen in the Human Development Report Development of the population See Chapter 1 Education See Chapters 1 and 6 Health See Chapters 1 and 2 Quality of life, social cohesion, involvement See Chapter 3 Integration See Chapters 3 and 4 Consumer culture See Chapter 5 Development of information society See Chapter 5 General level of economic development, economic growth See Chapter 6 Labour market See Chapter 6 Social policy See Chapters 2 and 6 Factors favourable to the society’s handling of and recovery from the crisis • Increased birth rate • Increased well-being of households, decrease in the number of people who are profoundly poor or at risk of poverty • Moderate emigration • High average level of education and involvement in studies • Attributing greater value to health with respect to the criterion of active life years • The positive effect of certain measures (e.g. the reduction of “passive” smoking) • The general improvement in the quality of life, including the improvement of living conditions, the increase in expenditures not related to food, active travelling, etc. • Increased participation in civil societies • A certain decrease in the gap between the overall level of the wellbeing and quality of life of the Estonia-speaking population and the Russian-speaking population • The increased competitiveness of the younger generation of the Russian-speaking population with Estonian citizenship in the labour market and their relatively higher satisfaction with life • The adoption of the Equal Treatment Act and the more active involvement of the Russian-speaking population in the Estonian media space • The general improvement in the quality of life has also increased the activeness of the consumers, the diversity of their needs, and their attention to quality • Increased attention towards self-expression and identity-related non-material needs and healthy lifestyles • The creation of an environmentally conscious consumer culture among the more affluent and active young consumers • The persisting effect of conservative thrift among the middleaged and elderly population • Widespread Internet access and the spread of services available through the Internet throughout all social groups have become important factors in quality of life • The widespread use of the Internet for public communication expands the possibilities for civic initiatives • The transparency of state authorities and other agencies achieved through the Internet increases public trust and people’s opportunities for being involved in and having control over policy implementation • Open access to important information increases people’s ability to function independently in a crisis situation • It is possible to use online communities to mitigate social dangers and crises, to express solidarity, and the receive mutual support • Estonia definitely belongs among countries with a high level of development • Even in the case of poor objective conditions, Estonian residents have had a relatively high level of satisfaction with their well-being • Estonia’s fast economic growth during recent years has also contributed significantly to the objective well-being of its society • Low unemployment rate • Relatively high level of activity of the elderly in the labour market • Flexibility of the labour market is guaranteed at company level • Unemployment insurance Factors hindering or endangering the society’s handling of and recovery from the crisis • Short average lifespan • Low birth rate • Negative natural increase • Large income gaps (Gini coefficient) • The “emptying” and social degeneration of certain regions due to internal migration • Ethnic differences • High dropout rate • The disparity between the content and structure of the education and the needs of the labour market • Large losses of labour force and working time due to bad health • The heightened health risks of people in their prime working age, especially men, including the high rate of mortality related to injuries and cardiovascular diseases • A comparatively very small number of healthy life years, reflected in the increased need for care and high health care costs already in early retirement, prevents the rise of the general age of retirement • Growing rate of alcoholism in the society, including among women • The spread of drug addiction, alcoholism, smoking, and sexual risk behaviour among progressively younger age groups • Health disorders resulting from an unhealthy diet and a lifestyle that does not include enough physical movement • The sharply increasing burden of the HIV epidemic on the health care system • Growing difference in the quality of life of younger and elderly people as well as wealthier and less wealthy population groups. • Increased unemployment and economic risk among the Russianspeaking population, especially among non-citizens with limited language skills • The increased distrust and dissatisfaction of the Russian-speaking population regarding national institutions and Estonian policies, accompanied by heightened expectations for the state to act as a guarantor of well-being and security • The social exclusion and alienation syndrome • The “cult” significance of consumption, the equation of successful consumption with a person’s success in the society • The fast proliferation of consumerism among young people and children, including the increasing effect of advertisements on children • “Overconsumption” as a result of the dominance of consumerist values, including the rise in the trend among young people and less wellto-do groups to take out consumption loans • The different level of Internet use in various social groups increases the danger of social inequality and exclusion if the Internet becomes the only or dominant information channel used by the state authorities or source of public services • The inadequate recognition of risks related to the Internet in the society, especially by the parents • The increasing gap between the online competence of different generations, including pupils and teachers • Children’s Internet use is not subject to the supervision of either parents or teachers • The transformation of the Internet into a place for expressing social animosity and other negative emotions could, in a crisis situation, amplify the sense of panic and the danger of ethnic conflicts • The Internet enables users to manipulate the public • The liberal economic model used up to the present has not allowed for sufficient investments to be made into human development • The previous source of economic growth is no longer sustainable • Estonia lacks a clear strategy for its transition into a new paradigm of economic development and has made no clear choices with regard to economic policy • Lack of active labour market policy • Lack of opportunities for retraining or in-service training, which would increase the flexibility of the labour market • The constant under-financing of social policy • A system of social benefits that does not pay sufficient attention to the needs of the target groups, is inflexible and does not do enough to decrease income disparity • The underdeveloped state of the care system, especially the inadequacy of home care • Lack of kindergarten places • The under-financing of health care and public health measures, including the lack of preventive systems related to diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, which significantly affect the length of one’s life, • Lack of social policy experts | 154
school, and the media) to avoid the marginalization of a troublingly large proportion of young people, such as the unemployed, drug addicts, or lawbreakers. Meanwhile, international studies of education indicate that while our current education system guarantees the success of the majority of Estonian school pupils in studying different subjects, it does not provide them with sufficient opportunities for personal development and instruction in the field of values. The third troubling social aspect is the excessive differences between people’s state of health and quality of life in general by region and ethnicity, which, for example, has brought about an accumulation of different social risks in North-Eastern Estonia. In a situation where the financial means of the country are dwindling, this may lead to an explosive rise in social tensions. At the same time, the Russian-speaking population has developed heightened expectations and a stronger reliance with regard to public security systems than Estonians, thus creating a favourable environment for manipulation with protest mentality. In addition to the Russian-speaking population, there also exist other social groups whose vulnerability is increased during the crisis due to their reliance on public policies. These vulnerable groups include pensioners and people with disabilities, whose growing fears and sense of helplessness may affect the entire society. What dangers and opportunities does the critical economic situation generate with regard to human development? Human development is affected most immediately by the situation in the labour market; this is especially true with regards to the unemployment rates which have already started to grow and will snowball in 2009. In relation to this, we need to find a quick solution for the reorganization of the training system due to the increasing need for in-service training and retraining. The developing situation is made even more volatile by the fact that many white-collar employees, younger and older specialists, i.e. people who have thus far belonged to the middle class will lose their jobs. This will be the first time when unemployment will affect the “winners” of the transition society, ambitious and consumption-prone young people whose social self-esteem and level of unconcern has hitherto been very high. The expectations of these groups regarding labour market measures, including their retraining needs, are completely different from those of unemployed weavers or miners. Meanwhile, their existing social resources are much greater. Due to this, the European Social Fund could be used to promote business activity on a much wider scale than usual. The upcoming situation is not reflected in the current labour market policy, where highly educated unemployed people are almost completely unaccounted for. The high debt burden of young families (which was one of the reasons used to justify the adjustment of the parental benefits to the current level of salaries) can bring about a critical situation in many families when they stop receiving parental benefits but have no employment opportunities. Due to this, we should consider reducing the size of the parental benefits in favour of lengthening the period of time during which payments are made. Regardless of the economic crisis, we cannot abandon the development of the child care system. In the context of the economic crisis, we should adopt an especially cautious approach to families with children in general, particularly those with only one breadwinner and above all, those cases where the only breadwinner is in danger of becoming unemployed. This may have far-reaching social consequences when, as a result of their parents’ unemployment, children lose the opportunity to obtain quality education, participate in hobby activities and play sports. The economic downturn has a very dangerous influence on health, especially due to social stress, which serves to further increase Estonia’s unprecedented high risk of cardiovascular diseases, alcoholism and drug addiction, depression, and suicide, as well as tendencies towards violence and aggressive behaviour, both inside families and in schools and public spaces. Taking into account the differences among social and ethnic groups in terms of trust in the state as well as their ability to cope with difficulties, the amplification of social protest and conflict is likely if the media, the politicians, and the civil society are unable to create and maintain the society’s readiness for and belief in overcoming the difficulties together. What should be preserved and what should be changed in terms of economic and social policy in order for us to survive the crisis as painlessly as possible with regard to human development or even emerge from it in a better shape than before? In our current situation, it is especially important to consider the social impact of all decisions related to economic and budgetary policy (on which social policy depends to a large degree) as well as the method of presenting the decisions to the public with the aim of • avoiding or compensating for the deterioration in the quality of life of vulnerable target groups (the decisions made at the end of 2008, which worsened the quality of life of people with disabilities and pensioners are an example of what to avoid); • avoiding an increase in health risks and continuing preventive activities aimed at improving public health; • preventing the negative effects of the crisis on the quality of life of children by implementing special support measures in the case of their parents becoming unemployed; • preventing negative demographic effects with regard to both the birth rate and emigration; • preventing panic and the aggravation of ethnic and social tensions. It is during the economic crisis that we should devote more attention to the non-material aspects of the quality of life, especially the psychological sense of security and trust in the fact that the social environment, including the authority of the state, is functioning in the public interest. The effect of the crisis could be mitigated considerably by the more effective use of funds provided by the European Social Fund as well as other European sources with respect to human development (i.e. public health, natural increase, quality of life, employment, involvement, the socialization of youth, the protection of risk groups, etc.). It is important to monitor carefully whether the projects correspond in practice to the most urgent social needs (ministries along with local governments, scientists, and partners from the civil society should weigh the priorities once more 155 |
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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
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Pieper, A. Sixsmith, Care related q
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Figure 3.7.1. The placement of Euro
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Figure 4.2.1. Life satisfaction by
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Table 4.2.1. Factors forming genera
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Annexes Annex 4.2.1. Socio-demograp
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Figure 4.3.1. Changes in the assess
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Figure 4.3.4. Attitudes of the Esto
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olds considered themselves to be pa
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Table 4.4.3. Agreement of the Russi
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Table 4.5.2. The prospects of non-E
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Figure 4.5.4. Certainty of Estonian
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mote equal opportunities. At the (e
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CHAPTER 5 Quality of life in a cons
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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
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Page 126 and 127: 5.6. Summary To briefly summarize t
Page 128 and 129: Table 6.2.1. Objective and subjecti
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Page 138 and 139: Figure 6.3.8. Percentage of social
Page 140 and 141: References 1. Aaviksoo, A., G. Paat
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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 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
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Page 172 and 173: Honorable mentions Estonian Human D
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Estonian Human Development Report

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