Социальный статус людей старшего возраста в сравнительной перспективе: особенности посткоммунистических стран

Социологический журнал. 2021. Т. 27. № 4. С. 8–31.

Rudnev M.

Social status reflects hierarchical placement of social groups in society, their prestige as perceived by members of the society. Existing literature demonstrated that status of older people differs across countries largely but is closely related to a level of country modernization. The current study investigated determinants of the status of older people in postcommunist countries and compared it to the other countries. Using two large international datasets of World Values Survey (58 countries) and European Social Survey (29 countries) as well as multilevel regressions, we found that older people in postcommunist countries had the lowest status. Compared to other regions of the world, this low status was only partly explained by the level of country modernization, implying that some other factors affected it. Moreover, only in postcommunist countries perceived status of older people decreased with respondent’s age. We suggest that the low status of older people in the postcommunist countries was caused by the social and economic transformations that followed the fall of the Communist rule, which led the older generation to losing of its human capital, and then exacerbated by the ageist legacy of the Soviet industrialist ideology. Finally, we emphasize that the very low status of older people is a problem of an entire society rather than of the specific age group.

Keywords: социальный статус, посткоммунистические страны, межстрановые сравнения, эйджизм, пожилые, старение