Generational Differences in Values in Central and Eastern Europe: The Effects of Politico‐Economic Transition

Abstract

This article explores the effects of post-communist transition and European enlargement on intergenerational politico-economic values in three groups of countries: Central and Eastern European countries that became European Union members; countries with EU membership prospects; and those that have no membership prospects, at least in the foreseeable future. The analysis indicates considerable differences between these three groups of countries and shows that over time Europeanization served as an intra-cohort mechanism of social change: it smoothed over intergenerational differences and led to a trend of convergence in values between new Eastern members of the EU and Western Europe. Europeanization also appears to have some harmonizing power on intergenerational differences in countries with EU membership prospects. At the same time, the rough post-communist transition process and the lack of consolidation mechanisms created considerable intergenerational differences in European countries without EU membership prospects, as revealed by the dominance of cohort replacement mechanism in these countries.

Values dependence on generation identification

“…Shifts in managerial values in birth cohorts were found in the analysis of selection of 708 leaders of 32 countries [10]. And similar research shows that international and cross-cultural distinctions can smooth or enhance differences between generations [10,18]. Data of the Chinese researchers show that in their country the younger generation already passed from traditional to modern values [22].…”

“…It is confirmed by results of much research. Transformation of mentality of generations affects personal values [3,6,7], family and gender values [8,9], managerial value [10,11], labor/work values [12,13,14,15,16], civic values [17], political and economic values [18], patriotic values [19]. Generalizing results of research, authors come to a conclusion that a new generation, and especially millennial are more focused on modern and individualistic values, appreciate external purposes more (money, glory) than internal ones (self-development, creativity) [5,2,6,13,20].…”

“…At the same time, the research given above have a number of limitations. First, most of them is executed on foreign samples: Australia [7,32], USA [15], Turkey [3,26], Africa [13], Central and Eastern Europe [10,18], China [9,16,23]. Only a small amount of works are devoted to the analysis of values of generations in the former Soviet Union [6] and in certain regions of Russia (Yakutia [8], the Volga region [19], the Central region [12], the Southern region [30], the Northwest region [33]).…”

“…Only a small amount of works are devoted to the analysis of values of generations in the former Soviet Union [6] and in certain regions of Russia (Yakutia [8], the Volga region [19], the Central region [12], the Southern region [30], the Northwest region [33]). Secondly, the majority of domestic research rely on comparison of two age groups (elderly and young [28], adult and young [29,34], students and their parents [12], pupils of high school and their parents [18]) or on comparison of these identical age groups, received in different years (2005 and 2012 [19]; 1961, 1970, 1980, 2010 [27]). Comparison of birth cohorts is not enough to draw conclusions about differences in values of generations which represent a basis of modern society.…”

Russia‐Ukraine Crisis: Value‐Based and Generational Perspective

“…The correlations analysis indicates that, overall, Russia and Ukraine are really similar in cultural, socio‐economic, and political values (total correlation is 0.81 with high level of statistical significance). Moreover, in a broader comparison with countries that are part of the EU, using WWS, Turkina and Surzhko‐Harned () found significant differences in values between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus as a group and EU countries. In such categories as child upbringing values, family and male‐female relationship values, work‐related values, and social position these two countries are almost identical.…”