<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title>Doug Henwood Talks » Blog Archive » Gallup poll of fSU: not better off than they were 15 years ago</title> <meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.2.2" /> <!-- leave this for stats --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/wp-content/themes/plain/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=rss2" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=rss" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=atom" /> <link rel="pingback" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/xmlrpc.php" /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200709' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200708' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200707' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200706' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200705' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200704' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200703' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200702' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2007' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200701' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200612' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200611' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200610' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200609' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200608' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200607' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200606' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200605' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200604' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200603' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200602' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2006' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200601' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2005' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200512' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2005' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200511' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2005' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200510' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2005' href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?m=200509' /> <link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /> </head> <body> <div id="page"> <div id="header"> <div id="headerimg"> <h1><a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com">Doug Henwood Talks</a></h1> <!-- <div class="description">Just another WordPress weblog</div>--> </div> </div> <hr noshade size="3" /> <div id="content" class="widecolumn"> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft">« <a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?p=7595">Re: Webster G. Tarpley’s Toxic Waste is Polluting the Antiwar Movement</a></div> <div class="alignright"><a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?p=7596">CBO on costs of an Iraq occupation</a> »</div> </div> <div class="post" id="post-7606"> <h2><a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?p=7606" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Gallup poll of fSU: not better off than they were 15 years ago">Gallup poll of fSU: not better off than they were 15 years ago</a></h2> <div class="entrytext"> <p><a href="http://www.gallupworldpoll.com/content/?CI=28729">http://www.gallupworldpoll.com/content/?CI=28729</a></p> <p>September 19, 2007 Hardships Still Common in Former Soviet Nations</p> <p>Many citizens say aspects of life are worse now than under the Soviet<br /> Union</p> <p>by Patricia Guadalupe GALLUP NEWS SERVICE</p> <p>WASHINGTON, D.C. — When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,<br /> residents of the emerging countries likely hoped that independence<br /> would bring greater economic prosperity and personal well-being.<br /> However, when the Gallup World Poll interviewed citizens of 14 former<br /> Soviet Republics throughout 2006, respondents often reported being<br /> worse off now than they were under the USSR.</p> <p>In the transition from communism to capitalism, one might expect to<br /> see a trade-off between affordability and quality, especially for<br /> aspects of life that were previously subsidized or free. But while<br /> 59% of respondents across the countries surveyed say they face a<br /> higher cost of living now than they did under the Soviet system, they<br /> commonly report deterioration rather than improvement in key<br /> indicators of well-being, including housing, healthcare, and education.</p> <p>In the case of the once heavily subsidized housing system of the<br /> former Soviet states, it is not surprising that 61% of respondents in<br /> these countries say housing is now less affordable. But when asked to<br /> rate the quality of housing now versus in the Soviet Union days, 42%<br /> say it is worse now than it was then. Twenty-eight percent of those<br /> living in the former Soviet republics say the quality of housing has<br /> improved and 20% say it remains the same. Residents of Lithuania<br /> (64%), Georgia (60%), Tajikistan (54%), Russia (50%), and Armenia<br /> (50%) are most likely to say the quality of housing has deteriorated.<br /> In no nation is there a majority that says the quality of housing has<br /> improved, though residents of Belarus and Estonia are the most likely<br /> to say so, at 49% and 47%, respectively.</p> <p>A similar pattern emerges when examining ratings of healthcare and<br /> education. More than half of respondents (55%) say healthcare, which<br /> was provided free by state health institutions in the Soviet era, is<br /> now less affordable. When respondents were asked instead about the<br /> current quality of healthcare versus the quality of care available<br /> under the Soviet Union, they were more divided. Thirty-four percent<br /> of people across all nations surveyed say the quality of healthcare<br /> is better, 38% say it is worse, and 19% say it is the same.<br /> Uzbekistanis (49%), Armenians (48%) and Belarusians (47%) are the<br /> most likely to say the quality of healthcare is better today, while<br /> those in Kyrgyzstan (60%) and Tajikistan (55%) are the most likely to<br /> say it is worse.</p> <p>Similarly, about half of respondents (49%) tell Gallup that<br /> education, which was free, universal, and multilingual under the<br /> Soviet Union, is currently less affordable. When asked to rate the<br /> quality of education available to them, respondents are again<br /> divided, with 36% saying it is better, 27% saying it is worse, and<br /> 23% saying it is the same. People in Lithuania (61%) and Uzbekistan<br /> (50%) are the most likely to report improvement in the quality of<br /> education, while those in Azerbaijan (43%) and Tajikistan (41%) are<br /> most likely to report deterioration.</p> <p>[…]</p> <p class="postmetadata alt"> <small> This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 2:52 am and is filed under <a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/?cat=1" title="View all posts in Uncategorized" rel="category">Uncategorized</a>. You can follow any responses to this entry through the <a href='http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=rss2&p=7606'>RSS 2.0</a> feed. You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a href="http://henwood.blogspace.com/wp-trackback.php?p=7606" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site. </small> </p> </div> </div> <!-- You can start editing here. --> <!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. --> <h3 id="respond">Leave a Reply</h3> <form action="http://henwood.blogspace.com/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p><input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" size="22" tabindex="1" /> <label for="author"><small>Name (required)</small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" size="22" tabindex="2" /> <label for="email"><small>Mail (will not be published) (required)</small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" size="22" tabindex="3" /> <label for="url"><small>Website</small></label></p> <!--<p><small><strong>XHTML:</strong> You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> </small></p>--> <p><textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="100%" rows="10" tabindex="4"></textarea></p> <p><input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="7606" /> </p> </form> </div> <hr /> <div id="footer"> <p> Doug Henwood Talks is proudly powered by <a href="http://wordpress.org">WordPress</a> <br /><a href="feed:http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=rss2">Entries (RSS)</a> and <a href="feed:http://henwood.blogspace.com/?feed=comments-rss2">Comments (RSS)</a>. <!-- 18 queries. 1.238 seconds. --> </p> </div> </div> <!-- Gorgeous design by Michael Heilemann - http://binarybonsai.com/kubrick/ --> </body> </html>