Cent Eur J Public Health 2015, 23(1):8-13 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a3930

Educational Inequalities in Self-Rated Health: Whether Post-Socialist Estonia and Russia Are Performing Better than 'Scandinavian' Finland

Rein Vöörmann, Jelena Helemäe
Department of Social Stratification, Institute for International and Social Studies, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

Aim: The aim of the study is to analyse relationship between self-rated health (SRH) and education in post-socialist countries (Estonia and Russia) and in Finland, a Scandinavian country.

Methods: Data from the 5th wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) carried out in 2010 were used. In particular, we used a sub-sample of the 25-69 years old. Two-step analysis was carried out: descriptive overview of relationship between SRH and education to assess the knowledge-related impact of education on SRH in pooled model for all three countries; and logistic regression analysis to evaluate separate models in each country.

Results: The prevalence of at-least-good health was the highest in Finland, Estonia occupied the second position and Russia the third. Knowledge-related educational inequalities were lower in Russia compared to Finland, while they were of similar magnitude in Estonia and Finland.

Conclusions: Our expectations that knowledge-based inequalities are lower in post-socialist countries compared to a Scandinavian country turn to be true in case of Russia, not Estonia. Possible reasons for the expectations might be a lack of attention paid to educational inequalities in terms of access to social resources, competitiveness in the labour market and to what extent education provide a tool against uncertainty (preventing work- and unemployment-related stress). Series of comparative studies revealing links between certain institutional packages and (socio-economic and knowledge-related) educational inequalities seem to be of special relevance.

Keywords: Estonia, Russia, Finland, education, self-rated health, post-socialist welfare system, Scandinavian welfare system

Received: June 3, 2013; Revised: June 3, 2014; Accepted: June 3, 2014; Published: March 1, 2015  Show citation

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Vöörmann R, Helemäe J. Educational Inequalities in Self-Rated Health: Whether Post-Socialist Estonia and Russia Are Performing Better than 'Scandinavian' Finland. Cent Eur J Public Health. 2015;23(1):8-13. doi: 10.21101/cejph.a3930. PubMed PMID: 26036092.
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