2010/2011

3.6. Summary
Mare Ainsaar
Indicators at how successful certain countries may be in
the future can be found through the analysis of their past
activities. Two decades ago, the Baltic states had to meet the
challenge of building societies and social protection systems
based on foundations that differed completely from
what their populations were familiar with. The countries
carried out their tasks with different speed and according
to different principles. Jolanta Aidukaite believes that
Estonia has had the most success of the three Baltic states
in terms of making strategic choices, especially in terms
of family policy. The outcome of these choices is being
reflected in the development of the population and people’s
well-being. Estonia’s social policy as a whole shows
more signs of solidarity that the social policies of the other
Baltic states. However, the Baltic states still remain below
the average European standard for social expenditures
and all three countries have a long way to go in the 21st
century until they manage to achieve the average level of
security and sense of confidence that are characteristic of
European countries.
Employment, income, health and trust are the factors
that shape an individual’s life satisfaction. Furthermore,
analyses indicate that the importance of
employment and income in determining people’s life satisfaction
has grown. Having a job and an income is an
important source of satisfaction for people in the Baltic
states. The Baltic states have very flexible labour markets,
which causes the employment rates to fluctuate considerably,
depending on the economic situation. The crises
have had an especially noticeable effect in terms of the
decrease in labour demand. Unlike the Nordic countries,
the crises have caused a rapid decrease in the number
of jobs and in wages in the Baltic states, which, in turn,
makes the people of the Baltic states more vulnerable
than the populations of certain other countries. This difference
is revealed clearly by the analyses conducted by
Realo & Dobewall, which demonstrate the distinct effect
of the economic crisis on people’s well-being in Estonia
and Latvia, but not in Sweden and Finland. At the same
time, the flexibility and distinctive nature of the Baltic
labour market has allowed the countries to go through
structural economic changes very quickly. In more stable
countries, such changes occur at a pace that is several
times slower.
However, life satisfaction is not determined solely by
income: we must also acknowledge the importance of factors
such as people’s health and level of trust. Over the
course of two decades, differences have grown between
the levels of life satisfaction of the wealthiest and the
poorest members of society, unemployed individuals and
employed individuals, as well as young and old people. It is
characteristic of the Baltic states for groups with lower levels
of life satisfaction, such as unemployed individuals and
the elderly, to react especially quickly to social problems,
while life satisfaction may even increase among some
social groups during the crisis.
The countries’ general level of well-being may be effectively
increased by increasing the well-being of the groups
that are characterized by lower levels of life satisfaction. In
the case of groups whose well-being is very strongly tied
to their income (e.g. pensioners), even a small change in
incomes would have a relatively large effect. At the same
time, analyses showed that although economic prosperity
is an important component of life satisfaction in the Baltic
states, health and employment are also very important
independent factors. For example, unemployment functions
as a separate source of dissatisfaction in Estonia.
Although the opinions of the people in the Baltic
states regarding their own level of satisfaction have
improved over the years, the countries still lag behind
many others in terms of people’s level of satisfaction. This
gap may stem from economic and socio-political differences.
While many studies indicate that life satisfaction is
connected to an individual’s natural level of optimism or
pessimism, the timelines provided clear proof of the fact
that social change does play a role in affecting life satisfaction.
Life satisfaction is also related to people’s social
status (whether they are unemployed, pensioners, etc.)
and therefore a country’s average level of satisfaction is
impacted by a change in the relative importance of various
social groups (the wealthy, poor, unemployed, employed,
pensioners) in society as well as socio-political choices.
The development curve of satisfaction in the Baltic
states since 1990 would probably be W-shaped: following
the decline of the level of satisfaction at the beginning
of the 1990s, the indicator began to rise after 1996
and this increase lasted until the 2008–2010 economic crisis.
Since the level of life satisfaction is partly connected
to the income component, we can hope that satisfaction
will begin to increase again as the economic recovery
progresses. In 2009, the level of satisfaction in the Baltic
states had once again reached approximately the same
level as it had been in 1990. Among the Baltic states, Estonia
had the population with the highest level of life satisfaction,
followed by Lithuania and Latvia. However, Latvia
has fallen further behind the other two countries over the
past two decades.
One fascinating question for which the current analyses
offer no simple answer pertains to the issue of why
the life satisfaction of some (wealthier) groups continues
to increase even during the bad times. The fluctuations
in the life satisfaction of separate social groups should
therefore be analyzed further based on individual countries.
However, it is certain that life satisfaction in the
Baltic states tends to increase when people feel healthier,
have more reason to trust each other and experience an
income increase as a result of the growing prosperity of
their country.
91 |