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132<br />
Figure 3.4.1<br />
Estonia’s position among 36countries, and the scores by<br />
indicators, on a ten point scale , where 0 is the lowest<br />
and 10 the highest<br />
Income<br />
(32.) Life satisfaction<br />
Education<br />
(5.)<br />
8<br />
(30.)<br />
6<br />
Community<br />
Civic<br />
(25.)<br />
4<br />
engagement<br />
(34.)<br />
2<br />
Environment<br />
Housing<br />
(27.)<br />
(35.)<br />
Work-life Health<br />
balance<br />
(34.)<br />
(22.)<br />
Source: OECD (2011) Better Life Index http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/22212213212<br />
Figure 3.4.2.<br />
Difficulties making ends meet, by income quartile (%)<br />
Highest income group Middle income group<br />
Lowest income group<br />
Percentage 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90<br />
Greece<br />
Hungary<br />
Bulgaria<br />
Romania<br />
Latvia<br />
Estonia<br />
Lithuania<br />
Slovakia<br />
Cyprus<br />
Ireland<br />
Malta<br />
Poland<br />
Spain<br />
Italy<br />
France<br />
EU 27<br />
Czech Republic<br />
Slovenia<br />
Belgium<br />
Great Britain<br />
Portugal<br />
Germany<br />
Finland<br />
Netherlands<br />
Austria<br />
Denmark<br />
Luxembourg<br />
Sweden<br />
Percentage 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90<br />
Source: EQLS 2011<br />
Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013<br />
Safety<br />
Jobs and wages<br />
(33.)<br />
(35.)<br />
ment in various spheres. Therefore, our progress is being<br />
driven by a few factors, which may be not sufficient for<br />
sustainable development. (Aaviksoo, Kirss, Mägi, 2010).<br />
On the other hand, it gives a chance to turn the unevenness<br />
from a problem into opportunity – the weaker areas<br />
can be pulled along, with the help of the stronger ones.<br />
As could be expected, Estonia’s strength is its accessible<br />
and efficient educational system; our position is also<br />
improved by people’s reciprocal helpfulness, as well as by<br />
the good air and water quality. Also, as could be expected,<br />
Estonia’s weakness is small household incomes, calculated<br />
on net-adjusted disposable income and household financial<br />
wealth. In Estonia’s case, the low level of household<br />
financial wealth means that the real estate owned by families<br />
has a low market value; people own few securities,<br />
and have heavy loan obligations. This explains also, why<br />
in the jobs and wages indicator, Estonia scores higher<br />
than in the income and wealth indicator.<br />
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about<br />
the rapid development of civil society and the spread of<br />
civic engagement. However, the corresponding indicator<br />
for Estonia in the Better Life Index (BLI) is one of the lowest,<br />
along with Israel and Russia. The reason for this dissonance<br />
has to be looked for in the differences in the data<br />
that form the indicator. The civic engagement component<br />
of the OECD’s BLI includes two measures – turnout in<br />
the last elections, and consultations with the public in the<br />
course of law-making. The openness and transparency of<br />
the consultation process was assessed on the basis of an<br />
expert survey, where employees in the government cabinet<br />
have been the respondents. Thus, there is probably no<br />
reason to assume that the picture provided by the data is<br />
worse than the reality.<br />
Does the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS),<br />
which is based on an opinion poll, change Estonia’sposition,<br />
compared to the measurements made by the OECD<br />
on bases of national statistics? Leaving aside some methodological<br />
differences , it has to be said that it does not.<br />
The standard of living, which the EQLS measures by a<br />
material deprivation index, places Estonia third from the<br />
bottom, after Bulgaria and Hungary. In quality of housing<br />
and health satisfaction, Estonia ranks, after Latvia, next<br />
to last . Since all the listed indictors correlate with life<br />
satisfaction, it is not surprising that in life satisfaction<br />
Estoniais in fifth position from the bottom, among the 27<br />
EU Member States.<br />
Political engagement, which is included into both<br />
the OECD and the EU index, is below the average. At<br />
the same time, Estonia is one of the few post-communist<br />
countries where the level of people’s apolitical social activities<br />
(clubs, associations and societies) is considerably above<br />
the EU average. This highlights a characteristic feature of<br />
Estonia’s civil society -- a high level of community engagement,<br />
but limited access to governance and policymaking.<br />
Estonia’s greatest strength, based on EQLS 2011,<br />
are limited tensions on the grounds of race-ethnicity and<br />
religion. This is the only measure, in the entire complicated<br />
system of indicators, where Estonia ranks first. Only<br />
16% of the respondents in Estonia found that there are<br />
great tensions between ethnic groups, while the European<br />
Union average was 37%; in Belgium, the Netherlands and<br />
France it was even 48% to 50%.