Transcript Subjective wellbeing in a postcommunist country

Subjective wellbeing
in a post-communist country
Romania’s International Wellbeing Index
Sergiu Baltatescu
Department of Sociology and Social Work
University of Oradea
Romania
Robert A. Cummins
School of Psychology
Deakin University
Australia
Sixth ISQOLS Conference
“Advancing Quality of Life in a Turbulent World”
November 10-14, 2004
Philadelphia, U.S.
Subjective well-being in Romania
Romania
 Large country (at
European scale).
 Low-income.
 Experienced a painful
transition from the
communist society to the
democratic political
system and market
economy.
Subjective well-being in
Romania
 Decreased almost
continuously after fall of
communism.
 Income is a good
predictor for it.
 Now has one of the
lowest levels in Europe.
Findings on subjective well-being in
transition countries
 Income levels are higher determinants than in
other countries (Diener, 1994).
 In large Eastern European countries, cleavages
were found due to social stratification: sex, age,
place of residence, ethnicity (Delhey, 2004).
 Bottom-up and top-down effects included (Saris,
2001).
 A group of frustrated achievers (Graham, 2002).
Baltatescu:
?
Objectives
1. Compare findings with results of other studies
in Romania.
2. Examine the psychometric properties of PWI
and NWI in the context of a transition country.
3. Explore the socio-demographic variations in
PWI and NW and compare with established
results and prediction of already proposed
theories.
Method: Survey
Date: November 2003
Place: 16 localities, Bihor County, North-West of Romania.
Selection: random route, person 18+ whose birthday
comes next
Sample: general population, representative stratified,
N=368
Interview: at respondent’s home, with professional
interviewers
Instrument: questionnaire, with PWI, NWI, sociodemographics and other variables.
Non-response rate: 30%. 8% of the cases were also
removed.
Weighting: by sex, age, place of residence and ethnicity.
Comparative results: PWI
100
As expected, levels are lower
than in Australia or Ireland, but
higher than in Algeria
90
Exceptions: Personal relationships,
Community connectedness
Tentative explanation: different levels
of individualism/colectivism
!
!
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PWI
Standard of living
Health
Australia
Achievements in
life
Ireland
Personal
relationships
Romania
Personal safety
Algeria
Community
connectedness
Future security
Comparative results: NWI
100
Exception: National Security
(similar levels with the first two
countries)
As (again) expected, levels are
lower than in Australia or Ireland,
but higher than in Algeria
Tentative explanation: Recent
admission of Romania in OTAN
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
NWI
Economic situation
State of the
environment
Australia
Social conditions
Ireland
Romania
Government
Algeria
Business
National security
Overview: PWI and Life as a whole
Personal relationships
items: highest ratings
Personal relationships
Community connect.
Reversed items
order compared
with Australia.
Personal safety
Future security
Achievements
and standard
of living:
lowest ratings
Health
Achievements in life
Standard of living
PWI and Life as a whole
also in reverse order
compared with Australia.
PWI
Life as a whole
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
Overview: NWI and Life in Romania
National security:
highest rating
National security
State of the environment
Same order like in
Australia, except
Economic situation
Business
Economic situation
Social conditions
Government:
Government
lowest rating
NWI and Life in Romania in
same order compared with
Australia.
NWI
Life in Romania
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Discussion
 International comparison gave the expected
results, except the highest levels ratings to
relationship items in Romania.
 Individualism/collectivism levels may be an
explanation for this, but why is not the case for
Algeria?
 Theory of wellbeing homeostasis (Cummins)
adequately predicts the difference between
personal and national wellbeing items.
 The “gold standard” for subjective well-being
does not fits Romania.
Discussion
 On the other hand, well-being homeostasis
theory does not predict a lower level of ‘Life as a
whole’ in comparison with PWI found in
Romania.
 Cummins
(2003)
explain
the
opposite
relationship – found in Australia - by the fact that
domains with higher degree of specificity does
not benefit of the psychological self-serving bias
like ‘life as a whole’.
 The contrary result in the Romanian case (but
similar with that of Algeria) may be a sign that
there is a more complex relationship here.
Distribution by gender
Overall, no significant gender differences were found!
100
90
Differences in PWI & Life as a whole
may be significant for a larger
sample.
80
Most plausible explanation: this is
the single case where weighting of
the file altered results: in original file,
no difference was found.
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PWI
Life as a whole
NWI
Male
Female
Life in Romania
Distribution by age groups
100
90
Significant differences were found, but
only for PWI and NWI.
Overall, results opposed to those from Australia!
Highest ratings of PWI are those of young
peoples
(18-34), lowest of older age (55+)
80
70
60
For Life as a whole and Life in
Romania, similar differences, but
no statistically significant.
Confirm previous findings in Eastern
European countries: older peoples
were most affected by economic
transition, while young peoples had
the best resources to resist
hardships.
50
40
PWI
Life as a whole
18-34
35-54
For NWI, exactly the reversed
distribution: young peoples were less
satisfied.
Tentative explanations (not
exclusive!):
Young peoples:
1. Have higher standards.
2. Had not got time to adapt their
views to the circumstances.
3. Have lower social positions.
4. Have NWI
a culture of dissatisfaction
Life in Romania
with present establishment.
over 55
Distribution by educational status
100
90
Significant differences were found only for PWI and those with
university credentials for Life as a whole.
Educational status clearly discriminate between PWI levels,
while only those with university credentials have significantly
higher ratings for Life as a whole.
80
70
60
50
40
30
PERSONAL WELLBEING
INDEX
Life as a whole
Primany or Gymnasium
NATIONAL WELLBEING
INDEX
Professional
High school
University
Life in Romania
Distribution by marital status
100
90
As predicted in the literature, married peoples show highest levels
of subjective wellbeing and also give highest ratings to PWI.
Giving the small size of the sample, differences in
wellbeing between married and non-married were
not found to be significant.
80
Differences in National Wellbeing were
also found to be non-significant.
70
60
50
40
30
PWI
Life as a whole
Not married
NWI
Married/free union
Divorced/Vidowed
Life in Romania
Distribution by quartiles of household
income in equivalent adults
100
Equivalent adults, computed after National Statistics formula,
helps to better approximate the real income of a household.
90
80
Both PWI and Life as a whole increase significantly as
household income grows from a quartile to another.
For the National Wellbeing items, to
be in the forth quartile makes a
positive difference.
70
60
50
40
30
20
Personal Wellbeing Index
Life as a whole
1st quartile
National Wellbeing Index
2nd quartile
3rd quartile
4th quartile
Life in Romania?
Discussion
 Findings confirmed those from all societies in
general and from transition society in particular.
 In all cases, PWI is at least equally sensitive to
socio-economic positions of individuals than “life
as a whole”.
 In 2 cases, it is even more sensitive than “life as
a whole”.
Psychometric proprieties: PWI
b
B
Sig t
1. Life as a whole
2. Standard of living
3. Health
4. Achievements in life
5. Personal
relationships
6. How safe you feel
7. Community
connectedness
8. Future security
Adj R² = .59
.48
.04
.15
.47
.05
.16
.00
.24
.00
.13
.01
.11
.01
.01
.90
.05
.11
.05
.11
.31
.03
Table 1. Regression of personal domains
against Life as a whole
 R square of the model is
higher than in case of Australia
 Huge beta weight for Standard
of living: 0.47
 Consistent with literature about
income in poor countries,
although the magnitude is
unexpected.
 All other items share small
parts of subjective wellbeing
variations.
 Health, safety and community
connectedness
does
not
contribute significantly to the
dependent variable.
Psychometric proprieties: NWI
B
Economic
Environment
Social
Governed
Business
National Security
Adj R² = .53
0,47
0,04
0,19
0,15
-0,01
0,08
b
0,43
0,04
0,17
0,17
-0,01
0,08
Sig.
0,00
0,41
0,00
0,00
0,91
0,06
Table 2. Regression of national domains
against Life in Romania
•Similar beta weight for Economic
situation: 0.43.
•R square of the model is also
higher than in case of Australia.
 Same explanation as in the
case of PWI.
 All other items share small
parts of Life in Romania
variation.
 Environment, Business and
National Security does not
contribute significantly to the
variation of the dependent
variable.
Psychometric proprieties: Factorial
structure
Factor 1 Factor 2
Personal National
WB
WB
 Both indexes items were
introduced in a Principal
Component Analysis.
 Results
were
rotated
using Varimax method
with Kaiser Normalization.
 Three factors emerged,
but the third factor is weak
(eigenvalue is around
1.05).
 When requesting the 2factor solution, the results
clearly dissociate National
from Personal items.
Life as a whole
Standard of living
Health
Achievements in life
Personal
relationships
Personal safety
Community
connectedness
Future security
Life in Romania
Economic situation
State of the
environment
Social conditions
Government
Business
National security
0,72
0,33
0,69
0,34
0,62
0,01
0,71
0,24
0,74
0,06
0,77
0,2
0,75
0,07
0,74
0,3
0,37
0,71
0,19
0,85
0,23
0,58
0,22
0,81
0
0,66
0,12
0,77
0,13
0,61
Variance explained
41.84
Total variance explained =
56.57%
14.72
Table 3. Principal Component analysis
of NWI and PWI items.
Discussion
 Both indexes show good psychometric
proprieties also in the Romanian context.
 Standard of living and Economic situation items
capture most part of variation in Life as a whole
and Life in Romania, respectively.
 Thus, unlike in Australian case, one item is the
most important predictor, and some items are
explaining practically nothing.
 Question to be further answered: are some of
items not important or their variation is simply
obscured by the influence of the economic
variables?
Conclusions
Levels of subjective well-being in Romania:
 Cannot be included in the “gold standard”.
 As expected: lower than first-world countries,
higher than third-world.
 Higher ratings for personal relationships
domains.
Distributions by socio-demographical variables:
 In many cases different than in Australia.
 But very similar to other findings in postcommunist countries.
Conclusions
Indexes of well-being:
 Good psychometric proprieties.
 Not all personal/national variables are predictors
of PWI/NWI.
 Are there special items (not included) that fit
post-communist transition countries?
Theories
 Wellbeing homeostasis theory perform well on
Romanian data.
 Some facts are still unexplained and should be
further researched.
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