Remnants of Communism and Present-Day Inequality

Abstract

Communism substantially shaped the values and beliefs of those who grew up under its regime. We argue that, after the Soviet Union’s collapse and the rapid transition to democracy and capitalism, many older people in post-communist countries continued to abide by an “ethos of equality” that was part of their socialization. These individuals continue to believe that it is the government’s responsibility to establish social equality; hence, they should evaluate social and political institutions based on the level of inequality that exists in their country. Using the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey, we examined to what extent levels of social inequality moderated the effects of age on social views and personal outcomes in post-communist and non-communist societies. We found that, especially in highly unequal post-communist societies, older individuals were less satisfied with democracy and trusted societal institutions less than their younger counterparts, whereas this was much less likely to be the case in post-communist countries with low inequality. There was no link between age and social views in non-communist societies, regardless of levels of inequality. Other than suggested by some scholars, inequality did not have any implications for evaluations of one’s personal life. The discussion focuses on the implications of our findings and their contributions to current research on social inequality and on the legacy of communism.

Keywords

communism values cross-cultural democracy socialization

Around 30 years have passed since the fall of communism, marked by the demise of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, many post-communist European countries have adopted competitive market economies and civil liberties akin to their Western counterparts (e.g., Hamm et al., 2012). Previous Soviet states and former communist countries like Estonia and Poland are now members of the European Union. Today, in terms of their political and economic systems, European countries maybe more homogeneous now than what once seemed possible during the reign of communism.

Convergence of economic and political structures, however, does not necessarily translate into the uniformity of social and cultural beliefs across Europe. The values and ideals represented in the public opinion of European post-communist countries still contrast with those in many non-communist European nations. There are divergent ideas about many social issues, such as welfare, poverty, and class perceptions (Evans & Kelley, 2017; Kreidl, 2000; Kulin & Meuleman, 2015). Frequently, these differences between post-communist and non-communist European countries center on attitudes toward equality, especially for older people in former post-communist countries. That is, people who spent a significant, if not all of their formative years under communist rule, tend to be much more sensitive to societal inequality compared to their younger counterparts and people of all ages elsewhere in Europe (e.g., Ignácz, 2018). With there being stark differences in societal inequality across countries, this begs the question to what extent inequality shapes people’s outlook on their society and their well-being.

The present study made use of the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS; European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2017) to examine how people across Europe respond to societal inequality. Our interest focused on the extent to which inequality shaped individuals’ outlook on their society, its political system, and their own life within it. Especially when inequality is high, we expected that older Europeans from post-communist nations would be less satisfied with life and democracy, less trusting of institutions, and also report higher levels of loneliness.

Post-Communism Transition

The end of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European communist regimes in 1989/1990 was a momentous event in modern history, which reshaped international relations and the political landscape of Europe. Many post-communist European countries shifted toward the institutional structures of the European Union (Tarabar, 2017). This transition introduced two previously foreign institutional structures, democracy and market economies, to post-communist European countries. Both are linked to greater economic growth for a country and greater wealth for its citizens (Helliwell, 1994); indeed, post-communist societies are much wealthier now than they were under communism. With prosperity being linked to higher well-being (e.g., Clark et al., 2008), subjective life satisfaction should have substantially improved in post-communist European countries. Yet, despite robust improvements in their livelihood, many post-communist European nations still reported low life satisfaction (Easterlin, 2009). Djankov et al. (2016) found that, even after controlling for standard of living, life expectancy, and GDP per capita, populations in post-communist Europe were less happy than populations in non-communists Europe. This “happiness gap” may persist because the transition resulted in less equality in society (Djankov et al., 2016).

Equality Concerns

Attitudes and perceptions about inequality have implications for people’s well-being, perceptions of society, and motivations for providing welfare. When income inequality was high, post-communist countries exhibited a decrease in subjective well-being—a pattern that was the inverse in many non-communist countries (Kelley & Evans, 2017). Moreover, compared to people from non-communist nations, people from post-communist countries were more likely to believe that social inequality is caused by external forces like discrimination, failure of the government to provide, and lack of equal opportunities (Kreidl, 2000). Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) compared samples from East and West Germany from 1997 to 2002. The authors found that, compared to West Germans, East Germans favored public policies aimed at income redistribution to reduce inequality, and these findings persisted when regional economic differences were controlled. These studies suggest that respondents in post-communist societies hold the tacit assumption that it is the government’s responsibility to regulate or reduce issues surrounding social inequality (Delhey, 1998; Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2014).

Similar patterns also emerged with regard to social values and their implications on social issues. Kulin and Meuleman (2015) reported that in non-communist European countries, providing welfare was related to Schwartz’s (1992) values of self-transcendence (i.e., universalism and benevolence), whereas in post-communist European countries, providing welfare was linked to values of conservation (i.e., tradition, security, conformity). The authors asserted that providing welfare in post-communist Europe was a function of “authoritarian egalitarianism” experienced under communism, whereas in non-communist Europe, providing welfare was driven by the goal to help others. Even with similar policies across Europe, different psychological motivations continue to persist between non-communist and post-communist European nations, reflecting the socialization effects of communism.

Indeed, Ignácz (2018) found that the more of a person’s formative years were spent under communism, the more that person was likely to endorse the social values championed by communism, such as social equality as a public good that is to be provided by government.¹ By contrast, if a person had not spent much time under communist rule, they tended to be less likely to endorse the same kind of principles even if they were from a post-communist nation (see also Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2019). Instead, that person might be similar to people from non-communist countries with regards to their values. Thus, the social views and value priorities of older individuals can be expected to have been shaped by communism, whereas the value priorities of younger individuals were likely shaped by the more recent experience of democracy and the market economy—similar to people in non-communist countries.

Cultural Socialization und Communism

Socialization is the process of developing attitudes, values, and behaviors that allow individuals to live successfully in a society. Scholars of cultural and political socialization locate an individual’s formative years during a period spanning from late adolescence to early adulthood (e.g., Krosnick & Alwin, 1989; Rekker et al., 2015; Stewart & McDermott, 2004). During these formative years, individuals are embedded in the transmission of culture via group and societal processes such as parenting, institutions or the media (Harris, 1995). Educational institutions are a critical site where societies pass on values and worldviews, which often form the basis for how individuals experience the rest of society, including their own place within it. If a sudden social transformation, such as the end of communism, occurred after an individual’s formative years, it is likely that some people’s values and attitudes have already been influenced by and crystalized under communism.

Socialization processes do not stop as individuals reach adulthood with regard to communism. Pop-Eleches and Tucker (2014) documented an “indoctrination” effect of communism during adulthood. That is, whereas having spent one’s formative year under communism is likely to have left an indelible impression on one’s values and social outlook, even adults can be indoctrinated by communism. In short, it seems that exposure to communism is influential and difficult to resist.

But if one’s formative years occurred after communism, values and beliefs might still be influenced by a country’s communist history via intergenerational transmission of values (e.g., Schönpflug, 2001). Even without direct exposure to communism, children and youth may receive messages from important others in their lives who themselves were socialized under communism. Foremost, such important socialization agents might be members of one’s own family, especially parents, but also authority figures such as teachers, coaches, and religious leaders, as well as members of the community at large (e.g., Darling, 2007). This type of intergeneration transmission tends to weaken over time. Thus, as time goes on youth in post-communist societies are less likely to be influenced by the social views and values which their parents’ and grand-parents’ generation may have acquired under communism (e.g., Sabatier & Lannegrand-Willems, 2005).

Structural Change Versus Cultural Socialization

An interesting interplay occurs between the structural and cultural components of society in post-communist societies. Over time, and as political and economic systems in post-communist societies assimilated to those in the West, there is evidence that values and beliefs have become more similar (Arts & Halman, 2004). For example, Verwiebe and Wegener (2000) found that perceptions of fairness changed over time. These authors documented that between 1991 and 1996, people in formerly communist countries had become more accepting of social inequality. Other studies also suggested that people update their value preferences in light of their changing societal and economic realities, and personal experiences such as during the transition phase toward democracy in post-communist countries (Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2017).

Although structural transitions do influence attitudes, such changes do not occur quickly, as societal values and beliefs are inert and somewhat resistant to change. For instance, Pop-Eleches and Tucker (2019) demonstrated that “left-authoritarian” beliefs were remarkably persistent for older left-leaning post-communists. The consequence was that attitudinal or ideological change cannot be explained with people changing their minds. Rather, it must be attributed to “a simple generational replacement process of [. . .] older generations giving way to younger generations less affected by communist socialization” (Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2019, p. 21). Specifically in regards to equality values, Loveless and Whitefield (2011) argued that in post-communist societies egalitarianism is a cultural norm and thus “sticky,” with change to occur slowly over generations (see also Alesina & Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007). In short, new political structures and new societal realities did shape the socialization experiences of younger generations, but did not affect the social attitudes of older generations.

Furthermore, when a county’s political system changes, similar structures do not necessarily produce new attitudes and values. As shown by Inglehart and Baker (2000), modernization and economic development brought about enormous social transformations, but societies often maintain traditional values based on their dominant religion or ideology. Preexisting cultural differences do not simply fade because of prosperity and structural changes; cultural socialization matters. The messages and symbols that people have been exposed to for years, as well as their historic heritage, do leave a deep imprint (Inglehart & Welzel, 2010). The consequence is that traditional values and beliefs persist. Stam et al. (2013) showed that even though secularization is occurring, variation in the values and beliefs of different societies still exist because of the deep-rooted influence religion has had in society. More generally, Hadler (2005) argued that ideologies and other belief systems have a stronger influence on attitudes than structure. Thus, certain ideologies, especially dogmatic ones like communism, might be crystalized, continuing to influence and organize people’s attitudes (Krauss, 2002). Communism shaped the lives of many Eastern Europeans for more than 40 years (Roskin, 1991). For its adherents, it was more than just an economic system and government, at times it functioned akin to a religion (McFarland, 1998). Indeed, as the fall of communism seemed to have left a “spiritual vacuum” in many post-communist countries (Inglehart et al., 2008).

If notions of equality can be likened to Schwartz’s (1992, 2005) social values, then it must be expected that this social value of equality endured long after the fall of communism. Though there is a need to change one’s values as a function of life-changing events (e.g., Vecchione et al., 2016), research has demonstrated that value preferences are comparably stable over time (Bardi et al., 2014). And to the extent that value change occurs, it tends to change slowly and not in any radical fashion (Sundberg, 2016; Vecchione et al., 2020). Though the transition away from communism to democracy may have called for an adaptation of some values; notably, Inglehart and Welzel (2010) argued that the transition to democracy was motivated more by a desire for social freedom than anything else. Thus, notions about social equality, including the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to reduce inequality, were not necessarily challenged by the transition to democracy. The consequence is that these ideas might continue to be central for older post-communists (Loveless & Whitefield, 2011).

A number of studies have noted the resistance to change and the persistence of values form examinations of the former Soviet Union. For example, McFarland et al. (1992) found that Russian traditionalists scored high in authoritarianism and supported equality, yet opposed laissez-faire individualism despite the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. Equalitarianism mattered for Russian authoritarians even with rapid structural shifts in society. The implication of these studies is that individuals socialized under communism are likely to hold on to their value preferences even when their countries are no longer communist (see also Loveless & Whitefield, 2011; McFarland et al., 1996).

The Present Study

The aim of this study was to examine the social-psychological effects of societal inequality for older Europeans from post-communist nations relative to their younger communists and people of all ages from non-communist societies. The democratic and capitalist transformations of post-communist Europe might alienate older people from non-communist countries because these institutions might entail less equality in society (Djankov et al., 2016). In turn, social inequality, as perceived by the population, weakens attitudes toward democracy and democratically elected governments (Loveless, 2013). Thus, the social and economic changes may taint the societal outlook for older Europeans from post-communist nations, as they had their previous social institutions (e.g., a strong welfare state, command economy) replaced with capitalistic and democratic foundations.

For younger post-communists, inequality likely matters less. The younger a person from a post-communist society is, the fewer of their formative years were spent under communism and the less likely they will have been subject to the possible intergenerational transmission of communist values. Instead, younger people in post-communist societies will have grown up with political structures and socialization experiences similar to their never-communist counterparts. Consistent with others (e.g., Kelley & Evans, 2017; Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2019), we expect there to be no difference between younger people in never-communist and those in post-communist countries.

In this study, we examined four different outcomes. The first two are related to individuals’ personal lives (life satisfaction, loneliness), as we assessed whether older post-communists’ subjective well-being is related to societal inequality. Incongruencies between one’s ideological beliefs (equality) and societal outcomes (inequality) have been shown to influence subjective well-being (e.g., Napier & Jost, 2008). Likewise, previous research has linked greater levels of social inequality to higher levels of loneliness (de Jong Gierveld & Tesch-Römer, 2012), with some of this evidence coming from post-communist societies (Petrov, 2007). Hence, when income inequality is high, we expected older individuals from post-communist European countries to report lower life satisfaction and greater levels of loneliness than their younger counterparts and all people from non-communist European nations (Hypothesis 1 and 2). These dependent variables offered us the opportunity to contribute to an ongoing discussion in the social sciences as to whether social inequality does undermine well-being, enhances it, or whether its relationship is more complex (Kelley & Evans, 2017; Oshio & Kobayashi, 2011; Schröder, 2018).

Our other two outcome variables are related to the evaluations of government and society at large (trust in institutions, satisfaction with democracy). Social values tend to shape one’s perception and evaluation of society (Braithwaite, 1997; Feather, 1994). Thus, if social inequality is high, older individuals in post-communist countries are likely to be less satisfied with democracy and less trusting of societal institutions than is the case for younger individuals in the same countries as well as people from never-communist countries (Hypotheses 3 and 4). Note that the use of two dependent variables referring to individuals’ personal lives and two referring to their evaluation of the political system and societal institutions, allows use to gauge the scope and nature of our predicted effects.

Method

Data

We used the fourth wave of the EQLS (Eurofound, 2017) for the present research. The EQLS contained 36,908 individual respondents across 33 European countries. Participants were acquired through a stratified multistage sampling design. About 56% of respondents were female with the mean age of 50.77 years (SD = 17.71).

European countries in this study were split based on whether or not they were once a formerly communist country, part of the Soviet Union, or broke off from a communist regime such as the countries that once comprised Yugoslavia (1 = post-communist, 0 = non-communist). Fifteen countries had an extensive communist past (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia). See Table 1 for a list of all countries along with their sample sizes. Age was used to represent socialization differences between older and younger people, and we examined both its linear and curvilinear effects.

Table 1.

Age and Psychological Measures Across European Countries.

Country	N	AgeM (SD)	Life Sat.M (SD)	Dem Sat.M (SD)	TrustM (SD)	LonelinessM (SD)	Gini coefficient
Albania	1,011	48.48 (2.54)	5.10 (2.69)	3.62 (2.54)	3.80 (1.80)	3.30 (0.88)	38.4
Austria	1,181	46.10 (2.25)	7.96 (1.66)	5.84 (2.25)	5.41 (1.54)	4.34 (0.73)	27.7
Belgium	1,017	51.17 (2.01)	7.31 (1.60)	5.48 (2.01)	4.80 (1.25)	3.60 (0.81)	25.3
Bulgaria	1,016	53.06 (2.25)	5.89 (2.20)	3.90 (2.25)	3.76 (1.87)	3.32 (0.87)	34.3
Croatia	1,011	48.93 (2.10)	6.49 (2.08)	4.16 (2.10)	3.53 (1.53)	3.70 (0.89)	28.6
Cyprus	1,009	53.63 (2.33)	6.70 (2.12)	4.55 (2.32)	4.13 (1.57)	3.56 (0.78)	29.8
Czech Rep.	1,014	50.56 (2.12)	6.62 (1.76)	5.27 (2.12)	4.57 (1.25)	4.29 (0.80)	25.1
Denmark	1,020	53.09 (2.05)	8.10 (1.54)	6.77 (2.05)	5.91 (1.45)	3.67 (0.75)	26.1
Estonia	1,001	55.42 (2.27)	6.76 (1.91)	5.10 (2.27)	5.20 (1.59)	3.95 (0.82)	32.8
Finland	1,052	56.90 (1.88)	8.12 (1.27)	6.58 (2.23)	6.21 (1.28)	4.20 (0.76)	25.4
France	1,198	49.72 (2.23)	7.14 (1.64)	4.90 (2.26)	4.48 (1.47)	3.79 (0.91)	29.6
Germany	1,631	50.75 (2.26)	7.32 (1.79)	5.76 (2.28)	5.11 (1.55)	4.19 (0.74)	29
Greece	1,096	51.41 (2.29)	5.60 (2.14)	3.91 (2.30)	3.55 (1.48)	3.59 (0.85)	33.3
Hungary	1,042	54.16 (2.30)	6.57 (1.99)	5.28 (2.30)	4.80 (1.83)	3.75 (0.98)	27.6
Ireland	1,011	50.83 (2.08)	7.68 (1.54)	5.79 (2.08)	4.50 (1.56)	3.79 (0.84)	29.7
Italy	2,007	51.69 (2.11)	6.63 (1.60)	4.37 (2.11)	4.09 (1.42)	3.65 (0.82)	33.5
Latvia	1,000	55.94 (2.23)	6.41 (2.00)	4.56 (2.23)	4.48 (1.51)	4.05 (0.89)	35.1
Lithuania	1,005	53.60 (2.35)	6.51 (2.13)	4.84 (2.35)	4.90 (1.60)	3.74 (0.85)	35.2
Luxembourg	1,005	48.12 (2.22)	7.90 (1.58)	6.63 (2.22)	5.57 (1.51)	3.92 (0.84)	29
Macedonia	1,013	49.84 (2.62)	5.72 (2.27)	4.24 (2.62)	3.57 (1.93)	3.32 (0.89)	33.6
Malta	1,052	53.72 (2.11)	7.55 (1.70)	6.14 (2.11)	5.16 (1.46)	3.79 (0.70)	26.9
Montenegro	1,000	41.75 (2.58)	6.84 (2.12)	4.94 (2.58)	4.68 (2.08)	3.68 (0.85)	29
Netherlands	1,010	52.97 (1.73)	7.70 (1.20)	6.05 (1.74)	5.28 (1.14)	4.11 (0.74)	26.8
Poland	1,009	51.03 (2.46)	7.20 (2.03)	5.27 (2.46)	4.48 (1.50)	3.64 (0.83)	29.5
Portugal	1,070	53.42 (2.12)	7.05 (1.76)	4.94 (2.12)	4.68 (1.38)	3.87 (0.77)	33.6
Romania	1,004	52.83 (2.41)	6.36 (2.30)	4.29 (2.41)	4.22 (1.82)	3.65 (0.89)	33.3
Serbia	1,056	48.27 (2.59)	6.69 (2.03)	4.94 (2.59)	4.38 (1.93)	3.48 (0.94)	33.8
Slovakia	1,019	53.71 (2.16)	6.53 (1.95)	4.54 (2.16)	4.40 (1.80)	3.91 (0.78)	24.4
Slovenia	1,003	52.41 (2.15)	6.94 (1.96)	3.94 (2.15)	3.76 (1.59)	3.89 (0.77)	24.9
Spain	1,005	48.91 (2.14)	7.10 (1.68)	4.28 (2.14)	4.07 (1.40)	4.04 (0.76)	36.2
Sweden	1,053	56.20 (2.12)	8.03 (1.49)	6.61 (2.13)	5.49 (1.37)	4.43 (0.71)	25.8
Turkey	2,019	37.44 (2.31)	6.12 (1.98)	5.55 (2.31)	5.54 (1.83)	3.30 (0.86)	40.1
UK	1,304	51.72 (2.36)	7.65 (1.49)	5.73 (2.36)	4.89 (1.51)	3.69 (0.79)	32.9

Note. Life Sat. = life satisfaction; Trust = trust in institutions; Dem Sat. = satisfaction with democracy; UK = United Kingdom. Gini coefficient from SWIID.

Control Variables

Country-level variables

The Gini coefficient represents the distribution of income in a nation or society, with higher values indicating greater income disparities (Gini, 1921). Gini was acquired from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) which estimated societal inequality based on multiple datasets (Solt, 2016). All analyzes were repeated with the Gini coefficient provided by the World Bank (2017b). The two Gini coefficients were highly correlated, but not identical, r = .83; we report models using these different versions of the Gini side by side. The 2015 Gini coefficient was used (or closest year), as it matched the time of data collection for the fourth wave of the EQLS.

Democracy scores were acquired from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem project; Coppedge et al., 2018) which assessed important democratic elements like the electoral process and plurality, political culture, and the civil liberties of a country. Corruption perceptions index was obtained from Transparency International (2015), indicating the corruption of the public sector of countries. Gross domestic product per capita (GDP) was collected from the World Bank (2017a) and served as a control variable. Finally, average economic growth after communism was acquired by taking the average growth in GDP per year after 1990, and countries’ dominant religion was assigned to each participant (i.e., Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Islam).

Individual-level variables

Several demographic variables were also controlled for in this study: sex (0 = male, 1 = female), marital status (0 = single, 1 = married, 2 = separated, 3 = widowed, 4 = divorced) and urbanization (0 = open countryside, 1 = village/small town, 2 = medium to large town, 3 = city or city suburb). Education was measured in terms of years of schooling, ranging from 0 to 20. Religious worship was also a continuous variable that examined the frequency of people’s attendance to religious services outside of weddings, funerals, or christenings, and ranged on a Likert scale from never (1) to every day/almost every day (5). To further ensure the that our results support the socialization effect of communism, we controlled for respondents’ (in)ability to make ends-meet so that results cannot be explained by possible financial struggles of the older post-communists. The ends-meet variable was anchored on a Likert scale ranging from 1 “very easily” to 6 “with great difficulty.” We included this variable to interaction with countries’ community history and inequality in all of our equations to control, which ensures that the predicted differential effects of inequality predicted for older people in post-communist societies will not be contaminated by the level of economic hardship that this group of people may have experienced themselves.

Dependent Variables

The life satisfaction measure comprised two items, “All things considered, how satisfied would you say you are with your life these days?,” and “Taking all things together on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy would say you are?.” These two items were highly correlated, r(36737) = .76, p < .001. Satisfaction with democracy was a single item on a 10-point Likert scale, “On the whole, how satisfied are you with the way democracy works in [country]?.” Note that single-item measures can perform adequately even in cross-cultural studies (e.g., Roccas & Schwartz, 1997). Trust in institutions was also assessed on a 10-point Likert scale and contained 9 items, (e.g., “Please tell me how much you personally trust the government,” and “Please tell me how much you personally trust banks”). Its reliability (α = .90) and unidimensionality (ω = .82) were satisfactory. Finally, the loneliness variable comprised 5 items on a 5-point Likert scale such as, “Life has become so complicated today that I almost can’t find my way,” and “I feel left out of society.” Following the removal of one item, the four-item loneliness scale demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .81) and unidimensionality (ω = .78). No items were reverse coded.

Analytic Strategy

We relied on multilevel (mixed-effect) modeling to avoid biased estimates and to acquire accurate standard errors (Hox, 1998; see Tables 2 and 3).² In our multilevel models, the country in which respondents were nested was treated as a random effect, with linear and curvilinear terms for age being treated as random coefficients in order to model variation in the statistical effects of age across countries. The Gini index, GDP per capita (henceforth GDP), the democracy index, countries’ religion, perceived corruption and communist history were examined as level-2 fixed effects, whereas age (both as linear and curvilinear terms), education, religious attendance, sex, marital status, ability to make ends meet, and urbanization level of where respondent lived all served as fixed effects at level-1. All continuous predictors were grand-mean centered. We used a person’s age as a predictor to gauge the effect of having grown up in a formerly communist (never-communist) country. Our central hypotheses were tested using a Gini by age by communist history three-way interaction. This required the inclusion of all concomitant two-way interactions as well. For all analyzes reported here, we used robust estimation of standard errors.

Table 2.

Mixed Effect Models With Robust Standard Errors and Gini From SWIID.

	Model 1 life satisfaction		Model 2 loneliness		Model 3 democracy satisfaction		Model 4 trust in institutions
	b (SE)		b (SE)		b (SE)		b (SE)
Intercept	6.87^***	(0.09)	2.31^***	(0.14)	4.76^***	(0.14)	4.25^***	(0.14)
Country-level
Communist past	–0.64	(0.37)	–0.15	(0.26)	–0.29	(0.72)	0.94	(0.71)
Gini	–0.21^*	(0.08)	0.03	(0.08)	–0.16	(0.14)	0.03	(0.13)
GDP	–0.05	(0.04)	0.02	(0.02)	0.13	(0.12)	0.06	(0.15)
Corruption	–0.24^***	(0.06)	–0.07	(0.08)	–0.58^***	(0.15)	–0.64^***	(0.21)
Religion
(0 = Catholic)
Orthodox	–0.24^***	(0.07)	–0.09	(0.07)	–0.10	(0.14)	–0.06	(0.18)
Protestant	–0.06	(0.12)	–0.33^***	(0.12)	0.26	(0.12)	0.27	(0.17)
Islam	–0.64^*	(0.23)	0.17	(0.13)	–0.12	(0.21)	0.30	(0.36)
Avg GDP growth	0.08	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.04)	0.11	(0.09)	0.02	(0.10)
V-Democracy Index	–0.10	(0.09)	–0.10	(0.06)	–0.54^***	(0.11)	–0.52^***	(0.16)
Individual-level
Age (linear)	–0.21^***	(0.04)	–0.02	(0.02)	0.05	(0.03)	0.05^*	(0.02)
Age (curvilinear)	0.12^***	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.01)	0.09^***	(0.02)	0.11^***	(0.02)
Female	0.18^***	(0.02)	–0.03^**	(0.01)	0.11^***	(0.03)	0.10^***	(0.02)
Education	0.13^***	(0.02)	0.11^***	(0.01)	0.08^***	(0.03)	0.08^***	(0.02)
Religious Attendance	0.08^***	(0.02)	0.02^**	(0.01)	0.17^***	(0.03)	0.15^***	(0.03)
Ends-meet	–0.69^***	(0.05)	0.26^***	(0.02)	–0.51^***	(0.04)	–0.28^***	(0.03)
Marriage
(0 = single)
Married	0.47^***	(0.04)	0.09^***	(0.02)	0.14^***	(0.04)	–0.10^***	(0.02)
Separated	–0.15^*	(0.07)	–0.08	(0.04)	–0.04	(0.08)	–0.02	(0.06)
Widowed	–0.07	(0.06)	0.01	(0.03)	0.14^***	(0.06)	0.15^***	(0.05)
Divorced	–0.03	(0.05)	–0.01	(0.03)	–0.07	(0.06)	–0.05	(0.04)
Urbanization
(0 = Countryside)
Small Town	–0.04	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.03)	0.27^***	(0.07)	0.15^*	(0.06)
Medium/Large Town	–0.09	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.04)	0.24^***	(0.08)	0.07	(0.07)
City	–0.05	(0.06)	–0.04	(0.05)	0.38^***	(0.09)	0.18^*	(0.07)
Interactions (within level 2)
Communist Past*Gini	–0.06	(0.14)	–0.21	(0.14)	–0.02	(0.17)	0.03	(0.02)
Communist Past*GDP	–0.08	(0.13)	0.05	(0.32)	1.40	(0.82)	1.40	(0.82)
Com.*Ends-meet	0.05	(0.14)	–0.05	(0.10)	–0.08	(0.08)	–0.03	(0.18)
Gini* Ends-meet	–0.04	(0.06)	–0.02	(0.03)	–0.03	(0.03)	–0.03	(0.02)
GDP*Ends-meet	–0.07	(0.05)	0.01	(0.01)	0.04	(0.04)	<0.01	(0.01)
Com.Ends-meetGini	–0.06	(0.08)	0.02	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.05)	0.02	(0.06)
Com.Ends-meetGDP	0.08	(0.22)	0.01	(0.08)	–0.08	(0.11)	0.10	(0.21)
Linear effects
Age *Com.	–0.46^***	(0.11)	0.06	(0.06)	–0.29	(0.18)	–0.19^*	(0.10)
Age *Gini	0.01	(0.06)	0.02	(0.02)	0.07^*	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.02)
Age *GDP	0.06	(0.33)	–0.02^**	(0.01)	0.04	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.02)
Com.ageGini	–0.03	(0.07)	–0.01	(0.02)	–0.11^*	(0.06)	–0.09^*	(0.04)
Com.ageGDP	–0.51^**	(0.16)	–0.01	(0.08)	–0.30	(0.28)	–0.25	(0.14)
Curvilinear effects
Age *Com.	0.13	(0.07)	0.03	(0.04)	0.29^**	(0.11)	0.09	(0.12)
Age *Gini	0.04^*	(0.02)	–0.02^**	(0.01)	0.06^**	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.01)
Age *GDP	<0.01	(0.02)	0.01	(0.01)	0.02	(0.02)	0.01	(0.02)
Com.ageGini	–0.03	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.04)	–0.03	(0.04)
Com.ageGDP	–0.08	(0.08)	0.04	(0.05)	0.30^*	(0.13)	–0.08	(0.15)
Variance components
Country	0.03		0.02		0.06		0.09
Age (linear)	0.02		<0.01		0.01		<0.01
Age (curvilinear)	<0.01		<0.01		<0.01		<0.01
Ends-meet	0.02		<0.01		0.01		0.01
Residual	2.75		0.58		4.67		2.32
Model Fit
AIC	138590.7		80486.9		153791.5		120204.5
BIC	138972.7		80867.8		154172.4		120582.1
−2 Log Likelihood	138500.7		80396.9		153701.5		120114.5
N	35,910		35,025		35,056		32,584

Note. Avg GDP growth = average GDP growth after since 1990.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Mixed Effect Models With Robust Standard Errors and Gini From World Bank.

	Model 1 life satisfaction		Model 2 loneliness		Model 3 democracy satisfaction		Model 4 trust in institutions
	b (SE)		b (SE)		b (SE)		b (SE)
Intercept	6.87^***	(0.09)	2.32^***	(0.08)	4.72^***	(0.18)	4.23^***	(0.15)
Country-level
Communist past	–0.62^*	(0.29)	–0.05	(0.04)	–0.11	(0.59)	1.25^***	(0.47)
Gini	–0.10	(0.07)	0.03	(0.06)	–0.06	(0.20)	0.14	(0.17)
GDP	–0.47	(0.48)	0.02	(0.02)	0.13	(0.11)	0.06	(0.15)
Corruption	–0.32^***	(0.06)	–0.01	(0.08)	–0.73^***	(0.15)	–0.71^***	(0.19)
Religion
(0 = Catholic)
Orthodox	–0.15^*	(0.07)	–0.09	(0.07)	–0.13	(0.16)	–0.10	(0.18)
Protestant	–0.06	(0.12)	–0.32^***	(0.11)	0.25	(0.14)	0.27	(0.16)
Islam	–0.88^***	(0.20)	0.30^***	(0.12)	–0.40	(0.23)	0.31	(0.28)
Avg GDP growth	0.10	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.04)	0.06	(0.09)	0.02	(0.10)
V-Democracy Index	–0.12	(0.08)	–0.09	(0.05)	–0.60^***	(0.11)	–0.54^***	(0.11)
Individual-level
Age (linear)	–0.21^***	(0.04)	–0.02	(0.02)	0.06^*	(0.03)	0.05^*	(0.02)
Age (curvilinear)	0.12^***	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.01)	0.09^***	(0.02)	0.11^***	(0.02)
Female	0.18^***	(0.02)	–0.03^**	(0.01)	0.11^***	(0.03)	0.10^***	(0.02)
Education	0.13^***	(0.02)	0.11^***	(0.01)	0.08^***	(0.03)	0.08^***	(0.02)
Religious Attendance	0.08^***	(0.02)	0.02^*	(0.01)	0.17^***	(0.03)	0.15^***	(0.03)
Ends-meet	–0.68^***	(0.04)	0.27^***	(0.02)	–0.50^***	(0.04)	–0.36^***	(0.03)
Marriage
(0 = single)
Married	0.47^***	(0.04)	–0.09^***	(0.02)	0.09^***	(0.02)	–0.10^***	(0.02)
Separated	–0.15^*	(0.07)	0.08	(0.04)	–0.08	(0.04)	–0.02	(0.07)
Widowed	–0.07	(0.06)	–0.12^*	(0.03)	0.12^*	(0.03)	0.15^***	(0.05)
Divorced	–0.03	(0.05)	–0.01	(0.03)	–0.01	(0.03)	–0.05	(0.04)
Urbanization
(0 = Countryside)
Small Town	–0.04	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.03)	0.27^***	(0.07)	0.14^*	(0.06)
Medium/Large Town	–0.08	(0.05)	–0.04	(0.04)	0.24^***	(0.08)	0.07	(0.07)
City	–0.05	(0.06)	–0.04	(0.05)	0.38^***	(0.09)	0.18^*	(0.07)
Interactions (controls)
Communist Past*Gini	–0.05	(0.14)	–0.21	(0.14)	–0.02	(0.17)	0.07	(0.20)
Communist Past*GDP	–0.16	(0.33)	0.02	(0.27)	0.45	(0.70)	1.56^**	(0.57)
Com.*Ends-meet	–0.12	(0.18)	0.03	(0.05)	–0.10	(0.24)	–0.01	(0.13)
Gini* Ends-meet	–0.07	(0.05)	0.10	(0.09)	–0.04	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.03)
GDP*Ends-meet	–0.06	(0.03)	0.02	(0.01)	0.04	(0.03)	0.04	(0.02)
Com.Ends-meetGini	–0.09	(0.07)	0.02	(0.03)	<–0.01	(0.06)	0.01	(0.05)
Com.Ends-meetGDP	0.39	(0.25)	–0.01	(0.05)	–0.01	(0.16)	–0.10	(0.19)
Linear effects
Age *Com.	–0.58^***	(0.11)	0.11^*	(0.05)	–0.34^*	(0.13)	–0.16	(0.09)
Age *Gini	0.01	(0.05)	0.01	(0.01)	0.07^*	(0.03)	–0.04^*	(0.02)
Age *GDP	0.06^*	(0.03)	–0.02^**	(0.01)	0.04^**	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.01)
Com.ageGini	–0.12	(0.06)	0.02	(0.02)	–0.17^***	(0.06)	–0.12^***	(0.04)
Com.ageGDP	–0.64^**	(0.14)	0.07	(0.05)	–0.34	(0.19)	–0.20	(0.11)
Curvilinear effects
Age *Com.	0.02	(0.08)	0.03	(0.04)	0.29^**	(0.11)	0.11	(0.08)
Age *Gini	0.05^**	(0.02)	0.07^**	(0.02)	0.06^**	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.01)
Age *GDP	0.01	(0.01)	–0.01	(0.01)	0.02	(0.02)	<–0.01	(0.02)
Com.ageGini	–0.02	(0.03)	0.04^*	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.03)	–0.02	(0.03)
Com.ageGDP	–0.07	(0.11)	0.07	(0.04)	0.23^**	(0.09)	–0.10	(0.09)
Variance components
Country	0.03		0.02		0.07		0.09
Age (linear)	0.02		<0.01		0.01		<0.01
Age (curvilinear)	<0.01		<0.01		<0.01		<0.01
Ends-meet	0.02		<0.01		0.01		0.01
Residual	2.75		0.58		4.67		2.32
Model Fit
AIC	138590.3		80483.9		153785.6		120190
BIC	138972.2		80864.7		154166.5		120567.6
−2 Log Likelihood	138500.3		80393.9		153695.6		120100
N	35,910		35,025		35,056		32,584

Note. Avg GDP growth = average GDP growth after since 1990.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Results

Control Variables

As summarized in Tables 2 and 3, we observed that in countries with less perceived corruption, respondents were more satisfied with their own life and with democracy, and more trusting of institutions. Women were more satisfied with life and democracy, and harbored more trust. Similarly, higher education and less societal corruption were linked to more favorable assessments, and lower levels of loneliness. This was also the case for individuals who attended religious services more regularly, though surprisingly more religious individuals experienced slightly higher levels of loneliness. Compared to single individuals, married people reported more positive responses, and lower levels of loneliness. Respondents living in the countryside tended to be less satisfied with democracy and less trusting of institutions.

Main Findings

For two of our dependent variables, life satisfaction and loneliness, the expected three-way interaction did not materialize neither in the model using the SWIID Gini, b = −.03, p = .68, and, b = −.01, p = .93, nor the World Bank Gini, b = −.12, p = .051, and, b = .02, p = .33, respectively. We did, however, find evidence for the critical three-way interaction for both satisfaction with democracy, b = −.11, p = .05, and trust in institutions, b = −.09, p = .021 in the analyzes relying on the SWIID Gini (see Table 2), and in the analyzes using the World Bank Gini, satisfaction with democracy, b = −.17, p < .001, and trust in institutions, b = −.12, p = .001 (see Table 3). In all models relating to satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions, the statistical effects of age were qualified by a country’s past and by the country’s level of inequality. Figures 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b summarize the findings for post-communist and non-communist countries, while separating them by different levels of inequality: 1 standard deviation (SD) below the mean, exactly at the mean, and at 1 SD above the mean of the distribution. Note that the confidence bands depicted in the figures define the range of estimates at one standard error (SE) above and below the estimate. Below we detail our findings from the analyzes using the SWIID Gini; because findings from analyzes using the World Bank Gini were equivalent we do not discuss those.

Figure 1.

Three-way interaction for satisfaction with democracy: (a) analysis using SWIID Gini. (b) analyzes using World Bank.

Figure 2.

Interaction for trust in institutions: (a) analysis using SWIID Gini, (b) analyzes using World Bank Gini.

Satisfaction with democracy

Figure 1a shows that the effects of age on satisfaction with democracy were roughly the same in post-communist and non-communist societies, such that younger people were somewhat more satisfied with democracy than their older counterparts, b = −.34, p = .06 and b = −.05, p = .078, respectively. Yet, at high levels of inequality (estimated here at 1 SD above the average of the distribution of the Gini), age differed sharply in how it predicted satisfaction with democracy in post-communist and non-communist societies. In non-communist societies, age no longer predicted satisfaction with democracy, b = .01, p = .60, whereas in post-communist societies, older individuals were slightly, but not significantly less satisfied with democracy than younger people, b = −.39, p = .081. Whereas young people did not differ across different types of societies, differences in satisfaction with democracy materialized among the oldest members of post-communist and non-communist societies. However, when inequality was low (estimated at 1 SD below the average of the distribution of the Gini), both older post-communists and older non-communists were less satisfied with democracy, b = −.29, p = .013 and b = −.30, p = .045, respectively. In summary, as inequality increased, the negative association between age and satisfaction with democracy was stronger in post-communist societies than in non-communist societies.

Interestingly, there was also a significant two-way interaction involving the curvilinear term of age and a country’s history, b = .29, p = .008. This effect demonstrated that older communists were more satisfied with democracy than could be expected based on the linear effect alone, though this effect was not moderated by their country’s level of inequality. This might suggest that the oldest people in post-communists were not inherently dissatisfied with democracy.

Trust in institutions

Figure 2a summarized the critical three-way interaction that emerged pertaining to this outcome variable. At average levels of inequality, older non-communists were slightly less trusting of institutions, b = −.14, p = .14. On the other hand, age was related to trusting institutions, b = .05, p = .012, in non-communist countries. When inequality was low, the relationship between age and trust in institutions did not materialize for people from either non-communist countries, b = .01, p = .34, and post-communist countries, b = −.07, p = .40. However, when societal inequality was high, older people from non-communist societies tended to be more trusting in institutions than younger people in the same society, b = .06, p = .006. In post-communist societies, though not significant, there was a slight trend of an inverse link between age and trust in institutions, b = −.21, p = .072. Differences between respondents among the individuals who had grown up under communism and those who had not when inequality was high or average. We also documented a two-way interaction, indicating that older post-communists were generally less trusting of institutions, b = −.19, p = .047.

Life satisfaction and loneliness

As reported above, the critical three-way interactions did not approach conventional levels of statistical significance regardless which Gini coefficient we relied on, although we still obtained noteworthy findings that are at least consistent with our hypotheses when using the SWIID Gini. Though in both societies older respondents reported lower life satisfaction, the linear link between age and satisfaction was stronger in post-communist societies, b = −.66, p < .001, than in non-communist societies, b = −.21, p < .001. Furthermore, a two-way interaction, b = −.46, p < .001, indicated that older post-communists were disproportionally unhappy compared to non-communists. There was no effect of age on loneliness in post-communist societies, b = .04, p = .53, nor in non-communist countries, b = −.02, p = .16.

Robustness Check

Life in Transition Survey (LiTS)

We used the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) Wave 3 (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2016) to extend our findings on people’s outlook of society based on social inequality. The LiTS examined former communist countries’ transition toward an open market-oriented economy, the role of the state, and other issues surrounding democracy. These data were used in previous investigations of the effects of communism on people’s livelihood (e.g., Djankov & Nikolova, 2018), and provided us with an opportunity to replicate our general prediction concerning the long-term effects of socialization under communism, namely, that having spent one’s formative years under communism implied that individuals were more likely to hold on to notions of equality (by government intervention), which then shaped their evaluations of contemporary society. These data allowed us to control for the effects of communist party membership and negative experiences under communism (i.e., whether communist regimes have tortured respondents and their family members or caused restrictions like not allowing the practice of religion)—in addition to similar variables controlled for in the EQLS when examining the interaction of age and inequality.

Similarly, the LiTS data also included a variable reflecting a preference for larger or smaller income gaps. As anticipated based on our previous reasoning, older individuals in post-communist societies exhibited a preference for a smaller income gap (b = −.15, SE = .06, p = .024), replicating earlier research (e.g., Ignácz, 2018); our analyzes did control for this variable.

As with the results from the EQLS, we estimated all models using both the SWIID Gini and the World Bank Gini. We also controlled for respondents’ parental occupations and educational background. Significant results would indicate further robustness of our findings, could suggest that some people who were socialized under communism value societal equality even if their experiences under a communist regime were not ideal or even traumatic, and shows that objective measures of inequality influence societal conditions regardless of their preexisting views on inequality (even though older people do prefer a smaller income gap).

However, a clear limitation of the LiTS was the small number of non-communist countries in these data, which only contained Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. These data made up less than 15% of the sample and had no representation from important regions of Europe such as Scandinavia and the western-most countries of the continent. Thus, we were unable to provide an adequate test of the three-way interaction involving communist history, age and Gini. Instead, we examined the age by Gini interaction within the 29 previously communists’ countries (including former Asian regimes like Armenia, Mongolia, and Tajikistan). Limiting the analyzes to only formerly communist societies also had the advantage to allow the inclusion of participants’ experiences under communism, as those did not pertain to populations in the five non-communist countries listed above.

Our focus was on two outcome variables, which were broadly comparable to the EQLS: trust in the government (α = .94, ω = .89) and perceived institutional corruption (α = .95, ω = .87). As before we performed both analyzes using multi-level modeling as well as fixed-effect analysis.³

Results

By itself, age was not related to trust in government nor to perceived corruption in institutions except for its curvilinear effects on trust in government. However, the interaction with age and the Gini coefficient (from the SWIID) indicated that trust in government decreased for older post-communists with both linear and curvilinear effects of age, b = −.02, p = .012, and b = −.02, p = .011 (see Table 4). The linear of effect of age on the outcome variable was less pronounced when inequality was low, b = .03, p = .17, though trending negatively when inequality was high, b = −.06, p = .058. The linear effect of age on inequality was replicated when we used the World Bank Gini, b = −.02, p = .011.

Table 4.

General Differences Between Young and Old Post-Communists With LiTS.

	Model 1 trust in government		Model 2 perceived corruption
	b (SE)		b (SE)
Intercept	2.04^***	(0.13)	2.74^***	(0.05)
Country-level
Gini	0.11	(0.07)	–0.06	(0.05)
GDP	0.42	(0.22)	–0.24	(0.17)
Corruption	–0.18	(0.15)	–0.34	(0.21)
Avg. GDP growth	0.11	(0.06)	0.09^*	(0.04)
V-Democracy Index	–0.36^*	(0.15)	0.26	(0.18)
Individual-Level
Age (linear)	<–0.01	(0.01)	<–0.01	(0.02)
Age (curvilinear)	0.03^*	(0.01)	<–0.01	(0.01)
Female	0.03	(0.02)	–0.02	(0.02)
Financial Satisfaction	–0.25^***	(0.02)	–0.10^***	(0.01)
Communist membership	–0.04	(0.03)	–0.05	(0.03)
Tortured under Com.	–0.09	(0.10)	0.13	(0.11)
Negative exp Com.	–0.14	(0.13)	–0.13	(0.11)
Income Gap preference	<–0.01	(0.01)	<0.01	(0.01)
Respondent’s Education
(0 = No education)
Primary	–0.11	(0.07)	<–0.01	(0.06)
Lower secondary	–0.10	(0.08)	<–0.01	(0.08)
Upper secondary	–0.15	(0.08)	–0.03	(0.07)
Post-secondary	–0.18	(0.08)	–0.03	(0.08)
Tertiary-secondary	–0.15	(0.08)	–0.03	(0.08)
Bachelor’s degree	–0.12	(0.08)	–0.08	(0.07)
Master’s degree/PhD	–0.14	(0.08)	–0.04	(0.08)
Father’s occupation
(0 = Agriculture, forestry, and fishing)
Mining	–0.05	(0.05)	0.04	(0.06)
Construction	–0.03	(0.02)	0.03	(0.03)
Manufacturing	–0.03	(0.03)	<0.01	(0.03)
Public utilities	–0.04	(0.03)	0.05	(0.03)
Wholesale trade	–0.01	(0.05)	0.07	(0.04)
Retail trade	–0.04	(0.04)	0.01	(0.06)
Finance/real estate	–0.02	(0.04)	0.08	(0.06)
Services	0.02	(0.03)	0.02	(0.03)
Public admin.	–0.06^*	(0.03)	0.05	(0.03)
Non-classifiable	–0.02	(0.03)	0.05	(0.03)
Never worked	<–0.01	(0.08)	0.01	(0.09)
Mother’s occupation
(0 = Agriculture, forestry, and fishing)
Mining	0.06	(0.09)	0.09	(0.09)
Construction	–0.04	(0.07)	0.02	(0.07)
Manufacturing	–0.06	(0.04)	0.05	(0.03)
Public utilities	0.02	(0.06)	0.04	(0.04)
Wholesale trade	–0.09	(0.05)	0.03	(0.06)
Retail trade	<0.01	(0.03)	0.07^*	(0.03)
Finance/real estate	–0.15^***	(0.04)	0.03	(0.04)
Services	–0.04	(0.03)	0.01	(0.03)
Public admin.	–0.01	(0.03)	–0.03	(0.03)
Non-classifiable	–0.07	(0.04)	–0.02	(0.06)
Never worked	–0.06^**	(0.02)	0.03	(0.03)
Father’s Education
(0 = No education)
Primary	0.01	(0.04)	0.06^*	(0.03)
Lower secondary	0.02	(0.04)	0.06^*	(0.03)
Upper secondary	–0.02	(0.05)	0.07	(0.04)
Post-secondary	–0.03	(0.05)	0.08	(0.05)
Tertiary-secondary	–0.03	(0.06)	0.10	(0.06)
Bachelor’s degree	0.01	(0.08)	0.08	(0.05)
Master’s degree/PhD	0.01	(0.08)	0.02	(0.06)
Mother’s Education
(0 = No education)
Primary	–0.01	(0.03)	0.01	(0.03)
Lower secondary	0.02	(0.04)	0.01	(0.04)
Upper secondary	0.06	(0.04)	<0.01	(0.04)
Post-secondary	0.04	(0.05)	0.07	(0.05)
Tertiary-secondary	<0.01	(0.05)	0.05	(0.05)
Bachelor’s degree	<0.01	(0.06)	0.07	(0.05)
Master’s degree or PhD	<–0.01	(0.06)	0.07	(0.07)
Respondent’s religion
(0 = Atheist/agnostic)
Buddhist	–0.06	(0.06)	0.01	(0.02)
Jewish	0.33^**	(0.12)	0.01	(0.19)
Orthodox	0.10	(0.07)	–0.10^*	(0.04)
Catholic	0.11	(0.06)	0.05	(0.04)
Other Christian	0.05	(0.04)	–0.08	(0.07)
Muslim	0.14	(0.09)	0.02	(0.07)
Other	0.03	(0.06)	–0.02	(0.06)
Marriage
(0 = single)
Married	–0.01	(0.02)	<0.01	(0.02)
Widowed	0.05	(0.03)	<0.01	(0.02)
Divorced	–0.01	(0.02)	0.02	(0.02)
Separate	0.06	(0.06)	–0.01	(0.05)
Urbanization
(0 = rural)
Urban	0.08^*	(0.04)	–0.03	(0.03)
Interactions
Linear effects
Age * Financial Sat.	0.01	(0.01)	<0.01	(0.01)
Age *Gini	–0.02 ^*	(0.01)	0.01	(0.01)
Age *GDP	–0.01	(0.01)	0.03^*	(0.02)
Curvilinear effects
Age *Financial Sat.	<0.01	(0.01)	<–0.01	(0.01)
Age *Gini	–0.02^*	(0.01)	0.02 ^*	(0.01)
Age *GDP	–0.01	(0.01)	0.02	(0.01)
Variance components
Country	0.10		0.09
Age (linear)	<0.01		<0.01
Age (curvilinear)	<0.01		<0.01
Financial satisfaction	0.01		<0.01
Residual	0.77		0.47
Model fit
AIC	75462.0		35526.1
BIC	76124.5		36305.4
−2 Log likelihood	75301.98		36230.1
N	29,189		17,004

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Though the linear effect did not materialize for age and inequality, a curvilinear effect did yield partially supportive evidence with regard to perceived corruption in institutions, b = .02, p = .016, suggesting that the older post-communists perceived more corruption when inequality was high. The age by (World Bank) Gini interaction was not significant for perceived corruption, b = .01, p = .16, though trended in the anticipated direction. Overall, these findings show robustness of some of the EQLS results, and also extends the generalizability of the findings to the various nations across Asia (e.g., Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Tajikistan).

Discussion

Long after its downfall as the dominant ideology of Eastern European regimes, communism continues to influence the social outlook of many people who once lived under its rule. Communism had a powerful way of shaping the persistent beliefs and values in the countries in which it once reigned (Inglehart & Baker, 2000; Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2014, 2019; Schwartz et al., 2000). Even when communist societies were arguably not very equal or fair, the ethos of societal equality appears to still linger in the thoughts of many older individuals in post-communist societies (Ignácz, 2018), and this ideal seems to shape their responses to the current political system and its institutions.

Our research found evidence to support two of four hypotheses. Satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions were qualified by respondents’ age, their country’s history, and the level of social inequality that existed in their country. If they had grown up under a communist regime, older individuals in highly unequal societies were less satisfied with democracy and more distrustful of institutions than younger individuals in the same post-communist society. At the same time, when inequality was similarly high, older people in non-communist societies did not show this decline relative to younger individuals. This is consistent with our prediction that individuals whose formative years occurred under communism would be more sensitive to societal inequality and, hence, would evaluate the current political system and its institution on the basis of equality. The observed pattern is consistent with the theoretical notion that one’s early socialization creates a basic framework for how individuals perceive the world (e.g., Krosnick & Alwin, 1989; Rekker et al., 2015). In the present context, having grown up and have lived under communism seemed to have established how post-communists perceive society and its institutions.

Our work is compatible with much of the existing scholarship on the social and political attitudes in post-communist societies. First, our data are consistent with other research that demonstrates the persistence of beliefs acquired during one’s upbringing under a communist regime (Alesina & Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007; Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2014, 2019). Second, our work is in line with the notion that older individuals in formerly communist societies are more sensitive to societal inequality (Ignácz, 2018; Kelley & Evans, 2017). Overall, Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) found the effects of communism to be large and long lasting, arguing that it would require at least one or two generations before social attitudes converge.

At the same time, our own data diverge from the prediction made by Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) in an intriguing way. As even only a cursory look at our figures reveals, we did find a great deal of convergence between older individuals in post-communist and non-communist countries when social inequality was high. In fact, especially in highly unequal societies the largest discrepancy with regard to satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions was found among younger individuals in these different types of countries. As new generations have come along since the fall of communism, they seemed to have adopted increasingly favorable views of democracy and their society’s institutions! Put differently, youngsters in post-communist societies appear to be champions of their political systems—much more so than is the case for youngsters in non-communist societies, regardless of whether they live in an equal or highly unequal society. It is tempting to see this as corroboration of a conclusion made by Kelley and Evans (2017) that social inequality does not necessarily have a corrosive effect people’s well-being. After all, we found that increased inequality in post-communist societies merely depressed the views of older people to the levels that are common among older and younger individuals in never-communist countries. Still, we view this as a deleterious effect of inequality, albeit a very narrow and highly contextual one.

A potential critical concern in the evaluation of our findings is the notion that older people in post-communist societies were less equipped to deal with the social and economic demands of capitalism, which many may have been experienced as a hostile takeover (e.g., Opp, 2013). In many ways, it would not be surprising if older post-communists were skeptical of a political system which they perceived to impose economic hardships on them. However, as discussed above, we found older individuals post-communist societies to be roughly equally satisfied with democracy and equally trusting of their institutions than their counterparts in never-communist societies. More importantly, all of our analyzes controlled for people’s ability to make ends meet (in the EQLS data) or satisfaction with financials (in the LiTS data), reflecting current concerns with their economic situation. Hence, we are certain that our effects are not the result of economically motivated concerns. In the LiTS, we were also controlled for beliefs of the income gaps, which suggests that less favorable assessments of society are not just a mere a function of perception, but of actual inequality.

Though we maintain that our results are consistent with the powerful socialization effects of communism, we acknowledge that we have not tapped potential variability in its effects on individuals having grown up under communist regimes. Whereas we controlled for a number of different variables, scholars have documented the moderating influence of religion, such as the specific Christian denominations (Djankov & Nikolova, 2018), political ideologies (Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2019) and the specific periods of communist regimes and socialization (Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2014). Scholars such as Shiller et al. (1992) also argued that specifics of how individuals experienced the transition did qualify their social attitudes. Whereas we do not deny that there is additional variability to be discovered within and between samples drawn from post-communist countries, our goal was to highlight a broader pattern, namely that older individual in post-communist societies appear to be sensitive to social inequality in their current evaluation of democracy and its societal institutions.

Substantively, if the patterns we observed are truly related to socialization under communism, one might still ask about the nature of the psychological process as to why exactly older individuals in unequal communist societies were so much less satisfied with democracy and trusted their institutions so much less than younger individuals in the same society. It stands to reason that those who grew up under communism might have felt disappointed or isolated by the drastic political, social and economic changes that occurred after the end of communism (see also Petrov, 2007). Furthermore, the privatization of cherished industries and public sectors might have reduced the sense of ownership or belonging that older post-communists once had with their respective societies (e.g., Opp, 2013). Among some segments of the population there might even be a certain nostalgia for the days of communism, especially to the extent that there were domains of life or periods of time in which they perceived things to have been better (Prusik & Lewicka, 2016). However, we do not believe that the relatively lower evaluation of democracy and societal institutions among older individuals in unequal post-communist societies should be understood as a desire to return to communism. Rather, it may reflect the initial high hopes for life after communism were dashed by the realities of democratic capitalism (e.g., Velikonja, 2009). Even so, as mentioned before, in this study, there were similarities in the evaluation of society for older individuals in post-communist societies and non-communist societies. Perhaps the more interesting question is why young individual in post-communist societies are so much more satisfied with democracy and trusting of institution the case for their counterparts in never-communist societies, though an answer is beyond the purview of the present paper.

Whereas our results for the evaluation of democracy, governments and institutions were pronounced, we found societal inequality to be largely unrelated to personal life satisfaction and loneliness for the older ex-communists. When using the Gini from the SWIID, our analyzes did suggest those in higher-inequality societies reported on average lower life satisfaction, but this was not the case when using the World Bank Gini coefficient. More importantly, regardless of its source, the Gini coefficient was never involved in any higher order interactions for personal outcomes, suggesting that life satisfaction and loneliness were linked to different factors than is the case for satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions. We offer two different explanations. First, the fact that high social inequality only lowered the evaluations of democracy and social institutions of older individuals in post-communist societies, but not evaluations of their personal lives, shows that the aforementioned ethos of equality only pertained to the relationship between inequality and government. In other words, whereas all respondents in the sample may endorse values pertaining to equality, it appears to be mainly those having been socialized under communism who consider it the government’s job to limit or reduce inequality. This finding is consistent with the expansive literature showing that the publics in post-communist societies favored public policies aimed at redistribution of wealth and income (e.g., Alesina & Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007; Delhey, 1998; Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2014). Second, one could interpret our findings as evidence that social inequality does not necessarily have a pervasive impact on the experiences in one’s own personal life (Kelley & Evans, 2017). We did find that people in post-communist societies reported low life satisfaction, though this result emerged in only one of our analyzes suggesting that this finding is not robust. This observation is consistent with reports that over time life satisfaction of populations in post-communist and never-communist societies have converged (Guriev & Melnikov, 2018).

Limitations

Like any other research, our study has limitations. The correlational nature of the data does not allow for the inference of any causal effects, even when findings are consistent with our hypotheses and were replicated in the robustness section. Moreover, though these are standard variables used in international survey research, the use of single items does not allow for an assessment of reliability or unidimensionality, that is, whether the items truly measure the same thing in different countries. Most importantly, the present research did not account for the age-cohort problem. It is potentially hazardous to draw conclusions from a respondent’s age because respondents are also part of a specific cohort with shared experiences, making it hard to attribute any observation to the age or membership in a particular cohort. In this sense, the effects for age we documented might potentially refer to cohort effects. There are good reasons to assume that this is not a major concern in our research. First, much research has documented the pervasive socialization effects of having grown up under communism, and that it could influence adults as well (e.g., Pop-Eleches & Tucker, 2014). Second, there is good evidence that socialization effects included concerns for equality, which were apparent in the evaluation of income inequality and welfare policies (Alesina & Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007; Ignácz, 2018; Kreidl, 2000). Third, we generated novel, albeit complex predictions that related age to contemporary societal inequality in countries with a communist past. To the extent that there were cohort effects, those effects should have been apparent in post-communist societies regardless of the level of social inequality in respondents’ countries.

Another limitation is the possibility that in the data evaluations of one’s own life were prone to context effects which might distort reports of subjective well-being (e.g., Nikolova & Sanfey, 2016). Context effects in survey research are well-known and well-researched (e.g., Schwarz, 1999). We cannot exclude the possibility that this is the reason why our EQLS data did not yield the same findings for life satisfaction and loneliness as for satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions. However, context effects do influence self-report data concerning subjective perceptions of one’s own life as well as judgments of other objects (e.g., Kemmelmeier, 2014; Stone et al., 2008); hence, it appears unlikely that responses to life-satisfaction questions would be selectively subject to such effects, but not evaluations of democracy and societal institutions.

The final limitation of our paper is the fact that we attributed a socialization effect pertaining to the notion that minimizing equality is the responsibility of the political system/the government. However, we were unable to measure this particular idea, even when we demonstrated in our robustness analyzes (using the LiTS) that older individuals in post-communist societies preferred lower levels of inequality—regardless of how large or small the social inequality actually in their respective country is. In this sense, we readily concede that our evidence is circumstantial. However, the longer individuals spent under communism, the stronger the link between their evaluation of the democratic system and actual social inequality is a non-trivial observation. Perhaps future research will be able to identify variables responsible for why respondents make this connection, such as a hatred for the rich, or the loss of expansive social safety nets. However, if one were to identify such variables, they must relate to individuals viewing social inequality as an issue that is chiefly the state’s responsibility, especially as we controlled for various alternative explanations such as GDP and individual economic concerns. That is, even though the concept of a communist “ethos of equality” (Ignácz, 2018) may be underspecified, which we argue that that older post-communists were exposed to during their formative years, the present paper confirms the importance of equality for people socialized under communism.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Waleed Jami wishes to recognize the encouragement and support of M.D.R. Evans during the early stages of this project. We are also grateful for the comments, criticisms and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers.

Authors’ Contributions

Waleed A. Jami is the lead researcher, and conducted most of the analyzes, interpretation of the findings, and writing. Markus Kemmelmeier contributed with data analyzes, interpretation of the findings, and revising drafts.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Waleed A. Jami is a graduate student working toward his PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno in social psychology. His research takes on an interdisciplinary approach in examining political ideologies across cultures, and multiculturalism/acculturation in pluralistic societies like the U.S.

Markus Kemmelmeier received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2001 in social psychology. He is currently director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Social Psychology and a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research interests focus on cultural psychology, political psychology, intergroup relations and statistical methods in the social sciences.

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