Mikk Titma

Adolescent agency and adult economic success in a transitional society

Following our previous research, we argue that weak societal institutions allow human agency factors to influence human behaviour strongly and, in particular, to affect how people coped with the collapse of Soviet institutions and responded to new opportunities that arose in the transition from communism. We chose Estonia as our study site because it had a “bottom‐up” transition that encouraged individual initiative and mass participation. Further, its state rapidly developed efficient, democratic institutions and legalized private ownership, which reorganized economic activity. Human agency factors include pre‐conditions (e.g., skills, education, goals), processes (e.g., making choices and factors affecting choices, such as self‐efficacy and locus of control), and previous agentic actions. We examined the impacts of adolescent abilities and goals, completed education, and economic activities in the first stage of the transition on economic success in the second stage using longitudinal data from the Path...

Support for New Political Institutions in Estonia:The Effects of Nationality, Citizenship, and Material Well-Being

Estonia’s institutional legitimacy appears to be much more closely linked to its democratic performance than to its success in managing the economy.

4 The Estonian Longitudinal Survey

Abstract:The Estonian Longitudinal Survey (ELS) actually began in 1966 when Mikk Titma conducted the first stage of a survey on a cohort of Estonian young people, who were at that time eighteen-yea...

6 Estonian and Russian Communities: Ethnic and Language Relations

Abstract:For Russians in Estonia, the prospect of Estonian independence meant a crucial change in status: from local representatives of an imperial nation to a minority in a small nation-state. We depicted the ethnic environment in which our respondents lived and worked. We then examined their command of the Estonian or Russian language as an important feature characterizing their mutual accommodation. Finally, we examined expressed attitudes by Estonians and Russians toward one another.For both Estonians and Russians, the immediate ethnic environment at work and place of residence had a substantial effect on language proficiency. The Russian-speaking respondents had a much more positive attitude toward close association with members of other nationalities than did Estonians. Most considered interethnic marriage acceptable. Many preferred to live in neighborhoods with Estonians as neighbors. On the whole, Russians were more open-minded and tolerant toward Estonians than Estonians were toward Russians. In ...

9 Educational Careers in Estonia

Estonians were literate at the end of the nineteenth century but tertiary education became common only during Soviet times. Thus, over half of the respondents in our study had some university education. After briefly describing the Soviet educational system, this article examines pre dictors of the educational career, specifically, the type of secondary school attended, gender, and social (family) background. Our study found that gender had a major impact on educational out comes. Two-thirds of the secondary school graduates were women, thereby surpassing men on the level of basic education; only at the university level did men outnumber women. However, a lower proportion of women than men studied after secondary school, and women s studies were prolonged. The study also found that tracking played a decisive role not only in educational outcomes by gender but also for the postsecondary educational career. General secondary schools provided direct access to university edu cation, and the general pattern was uninterrupted enrollment from second ary school through higher education (by age 24.8, three-quarters of the cohort had finished their education).

3 Estonia: A Country in Transition

Abstract:Estonia as a country emerged on the map in the twentieth century. Small by American standards, its history and culture are important to an understanding of the processes of post communist transformation. This article describes the place of Estonians in the world at the beginning of this millennium, their later incorporation into the Germanic world, and their transition into the twentieth century. The German-Russian rivalry ended after World War I with the formation of an independent Estonian nationstate. World War II started with the annexation and later Sovietization of Estonia and other Baltic states.Broad national resistance to Soviet rule remained fertile ground for perestroika in the late 1980s and provided the impetus which rallied together one-third of the population to confront Moscow to reestablish an independent Estonian state. In this context—after the Singing Revolution and on the eve of Estonia’s reestablishment of independence—our survey was conducted.

Entrepreneurs in a Transitional Society: Case Study of Estonia

This article investigates the process of the emergence of the entrepreneurial class in post-Soviet countries, using longitudinal data from the Paths of a Generation project that began in 1983 and has had four follow-up waves in 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2004. The interviewed age cohort graduated from secondary schools in the early 1980s, entered the labor market in the Soviet Union, and was most advantaged in the emerging transitional society. Now in their early forties, the members of this cohort are disproportionately overrepresented in the entrepreneurial class. Human agency had an effect on who succeeded and survived the open, tough competition in the emergence of the entrepreneurial class. The study includes an analysis of predictors of entrance into the entrepreneurial stratum during transition and entrepreneurial status in 2004 in Estonia; among these predictors are gender, education, personal traits in adolescence, and actions. The study reveals that gender and education have been the strongest predictors information of the entrepreneurial class throughout the transition. While the influence of adolescent traits is still observable twenty years after their measurement in a totally different society, the character of the influence has undergone changes during transition. The analyses show the influence of several actions that predict success in entrepreneurship.

10 Occupational Values of Estonian Generations

Abstract:Morris Rosenberg’s scale of occupational values was used at each stage of the Estonian Longitudinal Survey (ELS). so we could study changes in values of our respondents from 1966 to 1991-from their late adolescence until middle age. We found that. in comparison with Western countries, people in Estonia gave low priority to material rewards as the indication of a good job.At the same time, the values of self-expression and self-development were given higher priority among our respondents. However, compared with other regions of the USSR, people in Estonia gave a higher priority to material rewards and a lower priority to the value of work being useful to society. Further, through the course of working life, the importance of material rewards increased and self-expression and self-development declined in relative importance. Nonetheless. overall we observed a high consistency of occupational values over time. especially if these corresponded to the mainstream.

1 Estonia on the Eve of Independence: Overview of the Study

Abstract:Estonia is the most successful of the former republics of the Soviet Union in the transitions toward democratization and a market-based economy. This study is based on a longitudinal survey of a cohort in Estonia that was first interviewed in secondary school in 1966 and last interviewed when they were about 43 years of age in 1991-that is, at a time shortly before Estonia regained its independence.Although studying many aspects of people’s social, economic, and political lives during this critical transition period, we concentrated on two recurring themes. The first is the difference between Estonians and Russians-the main cleavage line in Estonia. How strong was ethnic nationalism at the time when events in this country were moving extremely quickly during the late 1980s and into 1991? The second theme is the comparison between the perceptions of middle-aged people and the young people of Estonia during this crossroads period. How aware were people of who stood to gain and who stood to lose fro...

2 Transitions from Totalitarian Society: Historical Overview

Abstract:At the time our survey was conducted in Estonia in 1991, the Soviet Union’s external empire in East-Central Europe had disintegrated and the Soviet Union itself was on the verge of collapse. This article reviews how this situation came about while also noting how unexpected the outcome was. Mikhail Gorbachev sought a perestroika (restructuring) of internal politics and New Thinking in the Soviet Union’s foreign relations. Yet few people, perhaps least of all Gorbachev, thought the internal Soviet empire was so near to its end. This historical overview of events in the Soviet Union sets the context for what happened in Estonia on the eve of its independence.