Movement in the Social Hierarchy in the Age of Transformation: People's Perceptions in Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

The article analyzes how people evaluate the changes in their position in the social hierarchy. The main research attention is focused on post-communist countries which exemplify the transition from one social order to another. The list of these post-communist countries was as follows: Bulgaria (N = 1000), Estonia (N = 1000), Latvia (N = 1069), Lithuania (N = 1023), Poland (N = 1263), Russia (N = 1603), Slovakia (N = 1159), Slovenia (N = 1065), Hungary (N = 1010), Ukraine (N = 2012), Croatia (N = 1201), the Czech Republic (N = 1205). Based on the questions from the Social Inequality-IV module of the International Social Survey Programme two types of people's perception of their mobility were identified: subjective social mobility and intergenerational movement on the social ladder. Subjective social mobility measured as a level of status of respondents’ current job compared to the status of their father's job when the respondent was a teenager. Intergenerational movement in the social ladder was considered as the difference between respondent’s self-positioning on the social ladder and his/her ideas about the position of the family of his origin on this ladder. Also, the direction and distance of both types of movement in the social hierarchy were measured. As a result, the differences in stratification profiles based on distributions of the respondent’s position on the social ladder and that of their parents were shown. In a large majority of nations, people moved down on the social ladder. The exceptions were Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. In general, the proportion of people who have experienced upward subjective mobility exceeded the proportion of those who have risen the social ladder. Distances of both types of movement in the social space were moderate. Subjective mobility and intergenerational movement in the social ladder did not correlate too much. The correlation between the variables was strongest in Poland and the Czech Republic. Methodological features of indicators of both types of movement in social space are outlined, but more accurate description of their measuring limits requires further empirical exploration.