Publications

Социальный мониторинг, 2002 год содержит обзор социально экономических тенденций в 27 странах Центральной и Восточной Европы, а также Содружества Независимых Государств. Доклад состоит из трех статей: "Социальные тенденции в переходный период” – дается обнов ленный анализ положения в ряде областей, включая доходы и бед ность, рождаемость и смертность (в том числе младенческую), охват образованием и попечение о детях, относящихся к группе риска. “ВИЧ/СПИД и молодежь: осведомленность, поведение и поли тика” – анализируются характер распространения ВИЧ и осве домленность молодежи о предохранении от ВИЧ*инфекции. «Качество обучения – к “одностороннему разоружению в обла сти образования”?» – рассматриваются новые данные о качест ве обучения и усвоения знаний в странах переходного периода в сравнении со странами Запада.

The social and economic changes in Bulgaria since the beginning of transition naturally raise concern about their impact on child well-being. This paper investigates the changes that occurred over the last decade in three dimensions of child welfare recognised as fundamental child rights economic well-being, health and education. Then it concentrates on particularly vulnerable groups of children those born of teenage and single mothers and those living in institutions. The data show that the human cost of economic transition has been high and children have been among the most vulnerable groups of the society.

Socio-economic and political turmoil in Indonesia has had an impact on the country's thirty years of progress in social development. However, it has also opened up new avenues for participation and region-specific policy formulation alongside growing demand for new approaches to the monitoring and analysis of social change. This paper examines the Family-in-Focus Approach - a comprehensive lifespan-based concept of human development. This joint initiative from UNICEF, the Government of Indonesia and others, sees families as participants in development rather than passive recipients of programmes. A family focus in the planning of multi-sectoral interventions could ensure better targeting, while building capacity for analysis at Governmental and institutional levels.

With the transition to a market economy, a rising number of single-parent families in Russia are being placed under an intensified threat of poverty. Single Parents and Child Welfare in the New Russia provides new evidence and analysis of the effects of this phenomenon of child welfare and assesses the social policy responses of the Russian government. The authors emphasize the urgent need for detailed country-level analysis of the situation at a time of great change and increased risk.

Do preferences for income inequality differ systematically between the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Western established market economies? This paper analyses 1999 data from a large international survey to address this question. In particular, we examine whether attitudes to inequality differ between East and West even after the 'conventional' determinants of attitudes are controlled for. Results suggest that this is indeed the case. A decade after the breakdown of communism, people in transition countries are indeed significantly more 'egalitarian' than those living in the West, in the sense that they are less willing to tolerate existing income inequalities, even after the actual level of income inequality and other determinants of attitudes are taken into account.