Status Attainment in the Post-communist Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper examines the changes in the relationships between social status components almost ten years after the fall of the communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Communist regimes have altered the relationships in the status attainment process, producing divergences from patterns usually encountered in Western capitalist countries. Due to the influence of the communist ideology and policy and to the characteristics of the command economy, the influence of social origins on status attainment was reduced, the effects of education and occupation on income were weakened, and the relationship between education and occupation was generally higher in state socialist societies compared to Western capitalist societies. With the fall of the communism, some of the constraints that communist regimes have placed on social stratification have been removed. This process is expected to trigger changes in the status attainment process. The paper also explores the extent to which the transitions to post-communism have brought the social stratification in Central and Eastern European countries closer to the model in Western capitalist countries, and to what degree communist patterns of social stratification are preserved after the fall of the communism.