Michal Illner

THE CHANGING QUALITY OF LIFE IN A POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRY: THE CASE OF CZECH REPUBLIC

Societal transformation which followed the fall of Communism in Czech Republic has affected many aspects of peoples lives. In this paper, we describe the main institutional and structural transformations which induced changes in life-quality after 1989 and sketch thereafter some of the changes themselves. It is mostly the changing living conditions which we cover in the contribution: 1. democracy and civil rights, 2. employment and unemployment, 3. incomes, earnings and the quality of consumption, 4. poverty, 5. housing, 6. environment, 7. health, 8. crime, corruption and social pathology. Some tentative conclusions are proposed: the changes have been contradictory – positive on some dimensions of life-quality (democracy, civil rights, environment, health), negative on another set (crime and social pathology, housing) and inconclusive in the rest (incomes, wages, employment). It is, however, premature to draw definite conclusions, as the process of transformation has not yet reached its end. Judging from subjective evaluation of the overall life quality, the recent picture was encouraging: in 1996, the majority of Czech population said they were satisfied wit how they live. Not only life-quality has changed after 1989, but also the understanding of what good life means.