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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%.

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