Geum.ru

Российская академия наук институт международных экономических и политических исследований модели системной трансформации и социальная цена реформ (опыт России, СНГ и стран цве)

Вид материалаДокументы

Содержание


Marginean I.
2. Perceived Quality of life in Romania
Data of Perceived Quality of Life in the Process of Transformation in Romania
3. Social policy as a development factor in the modern society
Подобный материал:
1   ...   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22

Marginean I.*




PERCIEVED QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION IN ROMANIA



1. General remarks and Significance of the Quality of Life

The formation of the paradigm of quality of life research in the 6th-7th decades of the 20th century required the contribution of many sciences such as sociology, economy, psychology, ecology, demography etc. (Guerrin et all, 1960; Havinghuest and Tobin 1961; Russett, ed. 1964; Bauer, ed. 1966; Galbraith 1967, J.Wilson 1967).

The completion of economic indicators with objective and subjective social indicators represents the actual beginning of quality of life research. It is an interdisciplinary paradigm. Among the pioneers of this movement, besides the names already mentioned, one may also find K. Land, W, Moore, E. Sheldon, A. Campbell, P. Converse, W. Rodgers, R. Quinn, D. Bell, O.Mancur, O.D. Duncan F. Andrews, S. Whitey, S. Seashore and many others.

The Romanian sociologists, economists, psychologists also joined this new approach from the early years of the 7th decade as part of a “global movement of social indicators and quality of life research”. The first competent book on quality of life research in Romania was published in 1984 by Cătălin Zamfir (editor) “Indicators and Sources of Variation of the Quality of Life”. In 1990 The Institute of Quality of Life Research (ICCV) was established (ссылка скрыта) belonging to the Romanian Academy. During the last 15 years we carried out 11 waves of national researches on quality of Life and on many other topics at regional or local level and some of these data are available from the Romanian National Archive of Social Data (ссылка скрыта).

Starting with 2001, quality of life becomes of a major, interest within the EU. More precisely, the European Foundation for the Improvement of the Life and Working Conditions, with headquarters in Dublin, the Republic of Ireland, started a program for quality of life survey and monitoring throughout 2001-2004 (T.Fahey et al, 2004).

The field of quality of life can be defined as the assembly of elements making reference to the physical, economic, social, cultural, political, health situation in which people live, the content and nature of their activities, the characteristics of the social relations and processes to which they participate and the services they have access to, the patterns of consumption they adopted, their manner and style of life, assessment of the circumstances and results of the activities that correspond to the expectations of the population, the subjective states of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, happiness, frustration, etc (Marginean, 2004a).

Due to the research experience of the past three decades, the necessity of knowing the perceptions and self-assessment of people concerning their life in order to determine the quality of life in a human collective is quasi generally accepted.

An adequate interpretation of these perceptions and self-assessments requires the clarification of their nature. Related to a state of facts that concerns the life environment and/or the subject that provides information, the perceptions and self-assessments express what people think in a personalised reality, an image depending on the person that shares its perceptions or self-assessments. The phenomenon involved here is not limited to observing the different capacity of people to observe and judge a certain state of facts. It is something far more complex, the reality lived by each and every individual. What we obtain by studying the perceptions and self-assessments of people is the individually filtered reality, and the filter in use varies from a group of population to another. In quality of life analysis we observe that the perceptions and self-assessments are not completely independent from reality, but they can get significantly remote from the economic reality. Indeed, several studies whose results are presented in this book, show the existence of a certain degree of dependence of the perceptions and self-assessments of the population on the existing state of facts, even if sometimes, the association measured in terms of statistics is at the lower limit of significance, as there are cases when no such statistic connection can be established, and sometimes the states of fact that the perceptions and self-assessments refer remain unknown to the researcher.

At the same time, besides the reference to the state of facts, including those unknown to the outsider, the perceptions and self-assessments include a whole set of expectations, interests, motivations, moods, norms, values, political, philosophical or religious options, as well as the public opinion and other elements that may influence them one way or other. All these aspects determine important variations in the perception and self-assessment of the quality of life from one person to another, from a social group to another.

The personalisation of perceptions or self-assessments makes it impossible to determine them from the outside. In the different normative judgements issued by an assessor (researcher, politician, any other person) in connection with the desirable values of the quality of life indicators, one cannot ignore the personal importance that our fellows attach to their lives, if we want to remain in the area of the plausible credibility, knowing that people react on the basis of impressions, judgements, knowledge about certain aspects of life on which they focus at a particular moment.

From the specificity of perceptions and self-assessments we infer a range of consequences for the knowledge of the perceived quality of life: one and the same state of fact can be perceived identically or differently; rather different states of fact can be perceived as different or identical by two or more persons or by the same person in different moments and/or circumstances.

But beyond these considerations we may expect the existence of compatibility between the states of fact and their perception by the population in large communities. Thus, the conditions of life lead to a quality of life perceived as better than in the situation when the above-mentioned conditions are not met.


2. Perceived Quality of life in Romania

The information we gathered in time through quality of life researches allows us to shape an overall image that we may consider conclusive on what the Romanians perceive about their life. The data refer to the population of Romania from the family households. Our survey did not cover the persons included in the “total” type institutions such as the army, the penitentiaries, re-education schools, or in residential type institutions such as hospital homes, homes for the elderly, etc.

The subjects that have answered the questions are adult persons (aged over 18) and the information refers to the situation of the subjects of the sociological survey and to the family household and social environment in which they live, starting with the one immediately next to them and ending with the country level.

Surveys like ours (of 1000 to 2000 subjects) cannot cover very small segments of population. Thus, we do not present the small but opulent segment of the top hierarchy (economic and political elite) and the group of the poorest.

As revealed by the research data, the quality of life of the Romanian population was perceived as modest, with few elements of support and many critical areas.

We present here same of the perceived quality of life indicators connected with the social cost of transition. They were selected from a total of 62 subjective indicators used in our general diagnosis of quality of life together with other objective ones.

Data of Perceived Quality of Life in the Process of Transformation in Romania

Selected items and years, %
June
Nov.
Sept.
June




2003
1999
1995
1990

Number of respondents

1018

1195

1509

2033

1. Evaluation of Family income

Very low
16
19
22



Low
34
37
32



Satisfactory
34
31
32



Good
15
12
11



Very good
1
1
1



Mean
2.5
2.4
2.3



2. Evaluation of Opportunities for self-assertion in life

Very bad
16
19
12
12

Bad
40
49
40
22

Satisfactory
25
21
30
38

Good
12
6
10
15

Very good
1
0
0
1

Mean
2.4
2.2
2.4
2.7

3. Evaluation of Job opportunities

Very bad
35
38
34
10

Bad
40
43
42
23

Satisfactory
13
11
14
30

Good
6
5
7
19

Very good
1
0
0
2

Mean
1.9
1.8
1.9
2.8

4. Present standard of living of the populations compared to 1989

Much worse
13
22
12



Worse
42
50
44



Similar
7
7
12



Better
29
15
28



Much better
2
1
1



Mean
2.6
2.2
2.6



5. Personal standard of living as compared to 1989

Much worse
22
35
19



Worse
38
40
39



Similar
8
10
13



Better
28
14
26



Much better
2
1
2



Mean
2.5
2.0
2.5






June
Nov.
Sept.
June




2003
1999
1995
1990

Number of respondents

1018

1195

1509

2033

6. Assessment of post-communist changes

Definitely negative
7
17
6



Negative
29
37
23



In between
42
33
47



Positive
17
10
19



Definitely positive
2
2
4



Mean
2.6
2.4
3.0



7. The wealthy - the poor

Very much
20
20
20



Much
40
43
38



Little
23
22
23



Very little
8
6
11



At all
5
5
7



Mean
2.4
2.3
2.5



8. Fear of Unemployment

Much
42
44
34
16

Little
17
23
23
33

Not at all
37
31
42
48

Mean
1.9
1.8
2.1
2.3

9. Fear of Price increase

Much
88
91
89
64

Little
9
6
8
28

Not at all
3
2
3
7

Mean
1.1
1.1
1.1
1.4

10. Interviewed person

Definitely disfavoured
10
19






Disfavoured
37
38






Neither favoured, nor Disfavoured

32

28






Favoured
16
12






Definitely favoured
3
3






Mean
2.6
2.4






11. Satisfaction of the everyday life

Very unsatisfied
8
11
7
6

Unsatisfied
25
33
26
16

Neither satisfied, nor unsatisfied

33

31

36

47

Satisfied
32
23
29
26

Very satisfied
2
1
1
4

Mean
3.0
2.7
2.9
3.1

* Differences to 100% represent non-answers


As we can you see most of the indicators presented above have observed average values under the theoretical ones on their scales with 3 or 5 points. In fact starting with relative modest values in 1990 (or 1995), the perceived quality of life of selected indicators was deteriorating in time.

The most optimistic estimates presented by the Word Bank report for Romania (2002) show that about 30% of the population lives in poverty. I say these estimates are optimistic because they used a method establishing the poverty line at 60% of the average value of consumption of the population, also using the structure achieved at a given moment; it was shown, however, (by normative-type of surveys) that this average value is below the decent standard needed to meet the requirements of consumption, more so as a fraction of it, while the structure is strongly misbalanced by basic components.


3. Social policy as a development factor in the modern society

In agreement with the almost unanimous view of the literature, social policy, as type of public policy, consists of the way in which the state, by its institutions empowered with the specific authority at the national and local level, relates to the conditions of living of its citizens (I. Mărginean, 2004b). In determining any public policy (J. Anderson, 1984), including the social policy, one must take into account both what the state authorities do and what they refrain from doing (by ignoring or denying) in any area of the living conditions of the population, communities or groups or individuals. The social policy actions concern legislative acts, decisions, administrative guidelines; projects and programs of achieving social policies ranging from raising resources for social programs of intervention by income redistribution to financing, producing and supplying goods and services.

Obviously, the state is not the first agent who which is assuming responsibilities concerning the living conditions of the population. Indeed often, and for many individuals, the state is not the determining welfare factor, but it is unlikely to be absent, as it is today. We can discern at least four other levels of intervention in the area of population’s conditions of living: the particular individual, who secures the necessities for his living; the family and kin of any individual that can not secure the bare necessities for a living; the local community; the voluntary, professional and charity organizations. During the past hundred years the states have adopted social policies that we may name active (social state) of introducing social insurance and some systematic programs of social assistance. At the mid of the 20th century the western societies built the welfare state (or the “wohlfahrstaat” in German), as opposed to the warfare state. The relation between the state, as the most recent supplier of welfare, and the other factors mentioned earlier, as well as the relations among the latter are different in the different patterns of welfare state, in the different countries (Esping-Anderson, 1993).

If we refer to the social policy of the Romanian socialist state, we observe the actual elimination of the private and voluntary sectors by enforcing the economic and social dependence of the individual on the state, the pattern of the socialist welfare state being tightly connected to the occupational status of the individual. During the post-revolution period, a residual-type of policy was promoted, which resulted in remaining at the level of a rudimentary welfare state. The actions taken in Romania starting in 1990 in the area of the social policies did not have the effects of getting distinctly near to the characteristics of the EU welfare state, not even as the range of benefits, not to mention their level, conditioned to a given extent by the economic development of the society.

The main characteristic of the capitalist welfare state is that the state is not involved just in helping the poor, but also in providing a set of social services to the entire population or for some categories (groups) or individual in need. A concept of social rights or of social citizenship is thus promoted (T. Marshall, 1952), subsequent to the juridical and political rights. Distinction is done, however, between the citizens and the foreigners, guests, temporary residents, refugees. Only the citizens have full social rights, concomitantly with the rigorous and conditioned control of granting citizenship, but social programs are also implemented for the individuals not having citizenship. For the EU member states there is the community citizenship. In agreement with the stipulations of the EU Social Chart of the free circulation of individuals, capitals, goods and services, a citizen of any member state enjoys the same social rights granted by any member state to its citizens, based on a permit of residence.

Contrary to the image induced by translating the expression “welfare state”, there is no egalitarianism, however; not all the population enjoys a high standard of living. In fact, there is a process of income redistribution and within this process, the wealthiest will, of course, be net-contributors, while the poorest and some of the middle class will be net-receivers of income, in cash and/or in kind or services. The welfare state is not overall charity. Almost all citizens contribute as much as they can to the functioning of the system. Hence the need not just of the simple support for the policy of the welfare state, but also to achieve a rather high level of consensus within the society, due to more general interests of human solidarity, social integration, achieving the social peace, creating a system of citizen duties. It may be said that the welfare state is a type of collective action to secure public goods or goods regarded as of public interest, even though it may include at a given moment the partial or total procurement of some goods that might be produced by the private system. We may thus make a picture on the social policy of the developed capitalist states, particularly of the EU member states, if we consider the impressive level of the public social expenditure, both as absolute value and as GDP share,. The average level for the EU member states of social expenditure is 27% of GDP (without education) while it is just 16% in Romania (increasing to 20% if we include the expenditure for education).

Although the expenditure is not the most adequate indicator of the social policy (anyhow, it does not mean that the higher the expenditure, the better it is, or that the lower the expenditure, the better it is), they express a financial effort that cannot be ignored. The older experience of western countries and the newer experience of the former socialist countries show that the level of the social expenditure increased considerably in order to meet the targets of the social rights of the citizens and to promote social inclusion. The pledge for a moderate welfare state in Romania claims urgently social expenditures of minimum 25% of the GDP, which to increase to 28-30% in the near future. This is a dramatic financial effort but the social problems to be solved are overwhelming. Some former socialist countries (Poland) already reached this level of social expenditure.

The increased social expenditure is to be supported even by a reasonable level of governmental indebting. Another survey, conducted under the aegis of the European Commission, reported that Romania, like the Baltic States and Slovenia might increase the financing of the social policies at the expense of the budgetary deficit considering that the governmental indebting is low.

Therefore, the social policy and its modern product, the social welfare state must not be treated as ideal models, but as specific activities concerning the living conditions of the population both on the short term and opening to the perspective. The cure for the five huge social problems identified by Lord Beveridge in his 1942 Report – poverty, misery, disease, ignorance, unemployment – prove to be necessary even in the wealthy society, and it can not be imagined, for the time being, outside an ample social policy assumed by the state and materialized in the welfare state.

The analysis of the social policy allows to assess the needs of the society, to evaluate the feasibility of the targets and objectives of the social policies promoted at a given moment and the investigate the manner of implementation, how much adequate the means are for the stated objectives, to assess the results and the effects of the different social programs, to highlight the alternatives; it can draw a true picture of the manner in which the resources are used, it can become a reference not just for the scientific community but for the public too, in the attempt to influence the groups of interest, the parties, the unions, the state authorities to adopt those solutions that take into consideration as much as adequate possibly, the needs of the society and the means to meet them. If we want a realistic approach we must mention that besides the unequivocal virtues of the market economy – efficiency, economic growth, welfare etc. – it is also associated to the production and perpetuation of inequities such as poverty, privations, marginalization and exclusion of important groups of population, even in the most developed countries. Provided it is not taken as rejection, which is not at all my intention, I’d say that the market economy is a necessary bad thing for the development of the human society, rather than something to be idealized. Hence the need to correct the adverse effects on the social life. Properly conducted surveys show that during the past 60 years, although the general standard of living increased significantly in the developed countries, poverty was not eliminated; the proportion of population living under the threshold of poverty ranges from a minimal 6-8% in the countries with developed (universal) welfare state to 20% in the countries with a less expanded (selective, residual) welfare state. According to World Bank estimates, that I consider optimistic, 29% of the Romanian population lives (2002) below the poverty threshold; over 40% of the population lives below the decent conditions of life.

In response to such problems, the EU agenda of social inclusion has an important component of fight against poverty. In this respect, Romania established in 2002 the National Anti-Poverty and Social Inclusion Promotion Commission, with a detailed plan of action. However, no significant results will be obtained in this direction unless proper resources for programs are allocated.

Ten to fourteen years ago, we considered that the status of economic dependence of the citizen on the state would be eliminated by redistributing the state and cooperative property. The ways in which privatization was done did not have such effect, though. On the contrary, following the chosen solutions of privatization and reorganization the level of economic dependence on the state increased for several categories of population. If a chance was lost for the active population, the diminishing of this dependence can be currently achieved by a radical improvement of the quality of occupation, by better working conditions and by better paid jobs. For the other categories of population the development of a system of social policies similar to the one currently existing in the EU is needed.

The actual state of facts in Romania claims the replacement of the residual (underdeveloped) social policy used so far with a model which to use the development potential in a manner similar to the one of the EU member states.

There were positive changes in the post-communist social policies in Romania compared to the previous situation: the introduction of the social protection for the unemployed and for the persons with disabilities, the allocation of granted minimal income and other benefits for the families with problems, the beneficial interventions in the social protection of children, etc. Even though a change in the approach of the social problems was observed when the process of EU integration started, Romania did not want to build a welfare state similar as structure and objectives to the welfare state existing in the EU member states, while some neighbouring states, currently EU member states, have done this by adopting an adequate policy and by allocating resources, loans and significant budgetary deficits, included. The argument of lacking material resources cannot be a pertinent criterion in assessing the nature of the social policies in Romania. There never are enough resources. The fundamental problems concern what is done and what is wanted to be done in the social domain, where doest it rank in the hierarchy of priorities of using the existing resources, the priorities within the system of social policies. The answer to these questions and to other similar ones does not show the social to be a national priority targeting the interventions toward the most vulnerable categories and persons and toward the social sectors with development potential (health care, education).

Romania still has, therefore, many children abandoned in institutions and in the street instead of being within a family of in family-type arrangements; Romanian citizens beg in European countries, where from they are sent home; the Europeans want to build a prison in Romania for the Romanian doing crimes in European countries; there are old persons whose pension, after a life-long employment, is below the poverty threshold, likewise is the income of many families earning the minimal wage on economy or even the mean wage, if they also have children, under the conditions in which some persons have higher education and are doing a highly useful work for the public; the income of most agricultural workers are modest; many Roma ethnics do not have school education and the skills needed for a job; education is underfinanced, same as the health care.

Instead of answering such challenges, changes were done whose effects are doubtful. It is the case of giving up the universal-type of health care in the public system, for instance. This was done by introducing the social health insurance, which limited the access to health care for some categories of population, although instead of a single public (universal) system now there are two public systems (but with no enough resources), no improvement was noticed in the quality of health care and in the status of the medical staff. It would have been more important first to strengthen the existing public system by a performing management, with significant resources, maybe with the introduction of some additional payments by the beneficiaries of some services, and to build a private system in parallel (developed by free entrepreneurship, not by privatising the public system) for the persons that can afford the expenses and who should receive appropriate services. This would have eased the pressure on the public system.

Many domains such as education maintained the former stipulation of gratuity in the state system (more recently for just a part of the students, who succeeded to take by competition a place paid from the budget, which raises a question of the equal opportunity), giving social fellowships and fellowships for the top 10-15% students irrespective of their financial status; all this under the conditions of insufficient financing affecting the very purpose of education by a precarious endowment and completely un-motivating wages for the teachers.

The pre-university state education system is expected to be free in the future too, but higher education should have, in my opinion, a different system of financing, which includes some students’ payment that will increase the resources and motivate better the students.

A similar evolution was noticed in the domain of social insurances for pensions and other rights of social insurances. Under the conditions of a considerably higher number of beneficiaries, the early retirement and the new services such as the leave for taking care of the child up to the age of two, even though high insurance contributions are paid, with no important subsidies from the state, the level of pensions is not adequate. At the same time, due to the postponement of a new pension law, several regulations were introduced between 1990-1999 in the manner of calculating the amount of the pension, which resulted in clear inequities because the old pensions were kept at low levels, while some beneficiaries received more than generous pensions.

On the other hand, the public pensions system has to be completed by other insurance pillars (occupational and personal insurances). In fact only this year a law for so called “universal insurances with private administration” was adopted. But it still is part of the public pillar by sources of contributions (paid from general contributions to public pensions). This type of pension is compulsory, for occupied persons under 35 years old.

As concerning the scheme occupational pensions, we see that public sectors (employees from administration, education and so on) are excluded. In fact these occupational pensions have to play a double role knowing that they are strong motivational factors for the professional performance and they contribute to maintaining the economic standard after retirement. This is the main modality of private pensions in the developed countries, the USA included. The governments of those countries have developed schemes of occupational insurance for the employees. Many companies have also insured their employees for pensions. These are enough arguments to take into consideration the use of occupational pensions in Romania too.

Another consistent preoccupation should concern the inclusion of the agricultural workers within the system of insurances for pension. The number of contributors to the public system if very low here, which will severely decrease the number of beneficiaries in the future, increasing thus the number of social assistance cases.

Of course, in the attempt to obtain better parameters of the human and social development, a higher quality of life in Romania, additional measures have to be adopted concerning: the reduction of social exclusion and the provision of social chances for the disfavoured categories (access to education, to jobs, etc.); the development of the street infrastructure in towns and villages (tap water, power supply, sewage, paved streets); cleanse the localities, waste recuperation, environmental protection, road infrastructure, development of the public transportation; direct the socio-cultural activity towards the permanent education; support the access of the population to culture (libraries, museums, theatres, cultural homes), sport practising at all ages.

Even considering only the aspects shown here, it results that the post-communist changes in Romania were very poorly directed towards finding a lasting solution to the inherited social problems and to the new ones. It is no wonder, thus that the social inequities deepened by an excessive polarization, with a large part of the population getting impoverished, with acute aspects of social marginalization and with slim chances of social access for some categories of persons. As far as I am concerned, I consider that the adoption and implementation of social programs directed towards the people and towards their multiple needs for survival and development will actually enforce the constitutional stipulations, the domestic, European and international regulations on the social rights of the citizens.

All these requirements lead to the idea of adopting a comprehensive social policy, which to contribute to the socio-economical development and to the individual welfare, which requests higher public expenditure (at least 25% of the GDP for the beginning), with absolute priority given to education, with a performing management in the use of resources and with the development of the public-private partnership in the social domain.

Approaching this problem from the perspective of the expectations of the population for the things to be done in order to improve the quality of life in Romania, we get an impressive list of desires, dominated, however, by the creation the new safe and good paid jobs, social protection, reform and economic development.

From the point of view it is necessary to develop a social model from the perspective of the good quality of life from population.


Referencies.

1. Andrews, M.F. (1974) Social Indicators of Perceived Life Quality, Social Indicators Research, vol. 1, no.1.

2. Bauer, R., ed (1966) “Social Indicators”, MIT Press, Cambridge, Messachusetts

3. Galbraith, K. (1967), “A New Industrial State”, Haughton, Milflin, Boston

4. Fahey,T. et al (2004), Quality of Life in Europe, Luxembourg

5. Marginean, Ioan, ed. (2004a), Quality of Life in Romania, Expert Press, Bucharest

6. Marginean, Ioan (2004b), “Politica Sociala. Studii 1990-2004” (Social Policy. Studies 1990-2004) Expert Press, Bucharest

7. Zamfir, Catalin (1990), Calitatea Vietii ca obiectiv politic (Quality of Life as Political Objective) in Calitatea Vietii (Quality of Life) no.1.