Manuscript Number: SOCI1499 
Title: Rising Economic Prosperity-does it lead to better Social Quality? The case of New Member States of the European Union. 
Article Type: Original Research 
Keywords: social quality; life satisfaction; new member states; economic change; social cohesion; social inclusion; empowerment 
Corresponding Author: Claire Wallace,  
Corresponding Author's Institution: University of Aberdeen 
First Author: Claire Wallace  
Order of Authors: Claire Wallace, ;Pamela Abbott 
Abstract: This paper considers whether rising economic prosperity in the New Member States of the European Union since joining the EU is also reflected in better a quality of life and what constitutes a better quality of society for the citizens of these countries. The paper contributes to the debate about the relationship between economic conditions and subjective well-being by showing that the factors that contribute to the latter have not only changed with economic growth but that subjective life satisfaction has also improved. Here we consider how this relationship can be explained by using the Social Quality model to measure the quality of society. We look specifically at the New Member States of the European Union (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) using the European Quality of Life Surveys for 2003 and 2007. This covers a period during which the economic conditions of these societies improved and they modernised. The social quality model explains a great deal of the variance in life satisfaction and helps us to show that as economic factors became less important for explaining life satisfaction, other aspects of the quality of society, such as social integration and empowerment, became more important. Furthermore, whilst general prosperity has risen, this is not necessarily reflected in other aspects of societal quality. We argue that economic and social factors have to be understood as interacting with other aspects of society if we seek to understand the quality of society. 
Page containing all authors contact details 

Title Page 
Rising Economic Prosperity– does it lead to better Social Quality? The case of New Member States of the European Union. 
Pamela Abbott and Claire Wallace 
Corresponding author: Claire Wallace Claire.wallace@abdn.ac.uk 
Key words: social quality, life satisfaction, new member states, economic change, social cohesion, social inclusion, empowerment
Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge the work of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin who sponsored the survey.  Publications from the European Foundation can be found on their website at http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ 

Introduction 
Eight of the ten new member states of the European Union which joined in 2004 (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia), as well as those that joined in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania), were post-communist countries which had suffered economic hardships since the introduction of market capitalism from 1989 onwards.   They have also experienced the disintegration of the previous social and political system that had been held in place by the old regime, with consequent disruption and anomie (Genov 1998; Abbott and Sapsford 2006). The subsequent absorption of these societies into the economic and political orbit of the European Union, culminating in their accession, has helped to modernise and improve their economies although this was not a uniform process (Delhey 2001; Rose, Munro and Wallace 2009b). Our first question is whether this is reflected in higher levels of life satisfaction? Our second question is if this is the case, then what aspects of the social context have made a difference? In order to ascertain this we need to look at a range of different indicators of societal quality and these have been theoretically developed as the “Social Quality Model” (Abbott and Wallace forthcoming). Rather than simply adding a list of various indicators (as is often the case in studies of subjective well-being) the indicators we have chosen reflect four different dimensions of societal quality: economic security; social inclusion; social cohesion; and social empowerment (Beck, Van der Maesen and Walker 1997; Beck et al. 2001). 
Whilst it is often claimed that the idea of quality of life should be measured as something  beyond economic progress (Hagerty et al. 2001; Layard 2005), there is nevertheless substantial debate about the relationship between economic progress and other indicators of social progress. More specifically, economic growth and happiness or life satisfaction are not linked in a linear way.  For example, Richard Easterlin has argued that as the economies of countries grow overall, life satisfaction does not increase correspondingly once a certain level of prosperity has been reached, even though the explanation for the differences between societies is economic. Even within societies, income differences become less important in explaining life satisfaction over time as levels of affluence increase (Easterlin 1974; Easterlin 2000). Nevertheless, most agree that economic well-being, both in the form of individual income and economic prosperity of the society as measured by GDP per capita, remains important (Headey, Muffels and Wooden 2008; Stanca 2010). Therefore it is necessary to taken into account a range of drivers for explaining happiness or satisfaction in addition to economic prosperity as measures of the quality of life (Diener and Suh 1997; Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi 2009). 
By contrast, studies of the transforming societies of Eastern Europe have shown that there is a close relationship between rising affluence and rising satisfaction (Guriev and Zhuravskaya 2009; Namazie and Sandfrey 2001; Sablonniere et al. 2009). Furthermore, those that have compared New Member States with the more prosperous EU countries have found that economic factors are more important in the former countries (Bohnke 2008; Fahey and Smyth 2004a). In these cross-sectional studies it seems that economic factors are relatively more important in determining life satisfaction in the less prosperous countries, such as those of East-Central Europe. Indeed, research has pointed to the fact that not only are the economic levels of the countries in question lower than those in Western Europe, but they score lower on almost all measures of societal quality (Alber, Fahey and Saraceno 2008). However, evidence suggests that there may have been some “catching up” taking place in recent years, due to European Union investment and with the modernisation of the social and political systems (Rose, Munro and Wallace 2009b). The question is therefore, if we look at differences over time rather than cross-sectionally, how have these societies changed? Have the new member states reached the level of development where economic factors are no longer so important? 
Most studies have concluded that societal, institutional and cultural factors are important mediators between subjective well-being and the macroeconomic level, whether it be the quality of governance of a society, the welfare state or regional cultural variations (Fahey and Smyth 2004a; Grasso and Canova 2008; Haller and Hadler 2006), leading some to question the usefulness of universal indicators such as GDP or the Human Development Index (HDI) as adequate measures of societal well-being per se (Bonini 2008), especially since they do not contain any subjective indicators. 
The question is therefore: what aspects of social life in the former communist countries are relevant for improving life satisfaction? This can help us to understand the role of economic growth in a social context.   We argue that this relationship can be explained by using the Social Quality Model.  Whilst subjective well-being is mainly concerned with individual perceptions (for example the role of having, loving and being defined by Allardt and others (Allardt 1993), we argue that it is the social context which is important for determining individual well-being and this is shaped both by the structure of society and by macroeconomic conditions. For this purpose a more sociological explanation is required (Haller and Hadler 2006). Whilst a number of authors have noted the increase in happiness or life satisfaction in Eastern Europe, the relationship to other societal dimensions still remains under-explored (Lelkes 2006; Hayo 2007; Baltescu 2010; Selezneva 2011).  It is this dimension that we will explore here, linking it to changes in macroeconomic performance as measured by GDP per capita (PPP US$).  
This paper is based upon data from the 2003 and 2007 European Quality of Life surveys in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are now members of the European Union. The aim is to consider the influence of both economic and societal quality factors on subjective life satisfaction. We recognise that the period between 2003 and 2007 is relatively short and a measurement of two points in time does not demonstrate a trend. Nevertheless, at least until the economic crisis of 2008, the countries under consideration had been experiencing significant growth in their formal economies, so these countries are good ones on which to test the changing relationship between rising economic prosperity and life satisfaction.  We therefore proceed in four stages. First, we look at economic growth and how it has affected these countries. Secondly we look at the life satisfaction and whether this has increased correspondingly. Thirdly, we look at whether indicators of societal quality have increased over the same period.  Finally, we consider what aspects of social and economic life contribute to life satisfaction and how these may have changed as the societies in question developed between the two time periods. 
GDP and Subjective well-being: are they both rising? 
Following the decline in the economies of the former communist countries in the 1990s there has been economic growth in the first decade of the 21st Century. Between 2003 and 2007 the economies of all ten countries grew, with GDP per capita (PPPUS$) growing between 19 percent (Hungary) and 61.5 percent (Romania) (see Table 1).  Despite the uneven growth between the countries their relative ranking changed little between the two years with Slovenia remaining the wealthiest and Bulgaria slipping one place to 10with Romania moving up to 9place as the poorest. Differences in GDP between the countries are also relatively large with that for Slovenia (the wealthiest country) being over twice that for Bulgaria and Romania. Although there have been significantly higher growth rates than for the rest of the EU, the gap between the new member states and the EU 15 actually widened between 2003 and 2007 (Rose, Munro and Wallace 2009a). 
-Table 1 about here 
Life satisfaction also rose in all new member states except Hungary between 2003 and 2007 from a mean value of 5.77 to one of 6.31  (see Table 2). The change in the mean values varied from +0.97 in Lithuania and Romania to -038 in Hungary. Bulgaria, despite an increase of 0.48, in general satisfaction remained the least satisfied country and Slovenia with an increase of 0.15 remained the most satisfied (see Table 2). 
-Table 2 about here 
In 2003 there was a reasonably good fit between life satisfaction and GDP PPPUS$ although Romania and Poland were generally more satisfied than would be predicted from GDP and Lithuania and Slovakia less so. In 2007 Poland and Romania were again generally more satisfied than would be predicted from GDP with Hungary and the Czech Republic being less satisfied. We should note that this was following an economic crisis in Hungary. Both of the latter countries had a lower than average increase in GDP between 2003 and 2007 and Hungary‟s was noticeably lower than the other 
countries. 
Quality of Society 
It is important to distinguish between societal well-being and individual well-being, although the two are inextricably linked (Bohnke 2008; Fahey and Smyth 2004a; Fahey and Smyth 2004b; Watson, Pichler and Wallace 2009). The former provides the context in which individuals are able to flourish and grow – the capability structure (Nussbaum and Sen 1993; Sen 1999). In this context we need to consider the opportunities that society provides for individuals to build their capabilities and the resources that are available for individuals to utilize in securing their and their families‟ welfare. In the latter sense, well-being is subjective – it is our understanding of our condition – but it is constituted through social interactions and cultural meanings and is therefore socially embedded. The quality of society influences social engagement and the higher the quality of a society the more options people have to plan and make arrangements for the future (Abbott and Wallace forthcoming). There is a strong relationship between economic performance and the quality of governance in a society and individuals perception of the quality of their society (Bohnke 2008; Haller and Hadler 2006). Therefore, agency and the ability to build capabilities is dependent on social and geographical location as well as individuals perceptions of the opportunities available to them, which are in turn influenced by their position in the societal opportunity structures (Fahey and Smyth 2004a). 
The Social Quality Model specifies both the conditions for individual well-being and the conditions for building and sustaining societies that are able to ensure the well-being of their members. It measures the quality of the social context of everyday life, and differs from other approaches to subjective well-being in that it is grounded in a theory of „the social‟ and in sociological understandings of society,  which are the outcome of the dialectical relationship between the formation of social collectivises and the self-realisation of the human subject. It is concerned with the recursive relationship between system and community or system integration and social integration (Lockwood 1992) and between agency and structure (Giddens 1984).  It measures the extent to which the quality of daily life provides for an acceptable standard of living, taking account of the structural features of societies and their institutions as assessed by reference to their impact on citizens (Beck, Van der Maesen and Walker 1997). The Social Quality Model is essentially a normative one, arguing for what conditions citizens should expect in a good society, but one which enables us to measure social progress (Phillips 2006). 
The Social Quality model is seen as a holistic construct which measures four complementary aspects: that influence quality of life. The first dimension, economic security means having available the necessary material resources for a decent life; the second dimension social inclusion, having access to the necessary institutional and infrastructural context; the third dimension social cohesion, that the necessary social structures, with collectively accepted values and norms are in place; and the fourth dimension, empowerment, that people feel that they have the capacity to take control over their own lives and have the necessary knowledge, skills and conditions to do so. The model is based on the assumption that the welfare of citizens is influenced by all four quadrants -that they form the conditions for each other and influence the outcome, economic security is inadequate on its own. It enables us to theoretically derive indicators to correlate with subjective life satisfaction both providing a sound basis for selecting indicators and testing the extent to which life satisfaction is influenced by the four constituent elements of the model.  The indicators are measures of the underlying concepts of economic security, social cohesion, social integration and empowerment rather than only measures in themselves, as we have argued elsewhere (Abbott and Sapsford 2006; Abbott and Wallace forthcoming).  We use life satisfaction as the dependent variable because it is the test of the ability of the social system to deliver satisfaction to its citizens. Our main hypotheses are therefore that subjective life satisfaction will have improved during the two periods (in tandem with macroeconomic growth) but that this can be explained by the increasing importance of non-economic factors in the composition of social quality. 
Methods 
The 2003 and 2007 European Quality of Life Surveys serve as the data bases for the empirical analysis. In the 2003 a 28 country survey was carried out covering the then EU and candidate countries – at that time the new member states of Central Europe were not yet EU members. In 2007 the survey covered 31 countries, the 27 EU member states, three candidate countries and Norway.  By that time, eight post-communist states had joined in 2004 (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary) and two more had just joined in 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria). Prior to joining the EU, these countries had been subject to EU harmonisation strategies as part of the accession process. In 2003 the questionnaire was fielded by Intomart GFK and in 2007 by TNS Opinion, these organisations having responsibility for assigning national institutes to draw random samples of around 1000 respondents (but with 600 in Slovenia and Estonia in 2003 and 1,500 in Poland in 2007) and conduct the interviews in each country. In both years the survey collected comparable information on household and family composition, working conditions, social position, income and standard of living, time use and work-life balance, housing conditions, political participation, social support and social networks, health and subjective well-being.  Some changes were made to the questionnaire between waves, with additional questions being asked in 2007 but the key elements for measuring quality of society and subjective well-being were retained (Anderson et al. 2009). 
In this paper we use the data for the 10 former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe that are now members of the EU, a total of 9,301in respondents in 2003 and 10,949 in 2007.  We first consider the extent to which people’s overall evaluation of their quality of life had changed between 2003 and 2007. We then construct a model, based on Social Quality, and test the extent to which it measurers the quality of life in the countries under consideration by carrying out an OLS regression with life satisfaction as the dependent variable. This has already been validated in both surveys for the whole of the EU and found to be stable across time and across countries (author ref). Although we cannot measure a trend using only two cross national surveys at different time points, it does enable us to look at whether the quality of society was different in 2007, after there had been substantial economic growth, when compared with 2003. 
In constructing the model we have selected as indicators variables from a rich data set as indicative of the underlying constructs we are measuring using  „realist‟ social theory (Craib 1984) . Undoubtedly we could have explained more of the variance if we had included additional indicators but this would have made the model more difficult to interpret and was not necessary for our purpose here as we are testing the four underlying constructs rather than variations in individual indicators. 
In order to test our main hypothesis that social quality improved in the region between 2003 and 2007 we carried out a series of OLS regressions with life satisfaction as the independent variable, controlling for age and gender for 2003 and 2007. We entered the variables in four blocks: economic security; social cohesion; social integration, and; empowerment. Finally, using Slovenia as the reference, we tested our models to see if they held for all the countries. We tested the model for multicollinearity and found it to be satisfactory as the tolerance of no variable was below 0.4. The levels of single order correlations between the dependent and independent variable were also tested and found to be acceptable. 
We should note that there were a number of changes in the questionnaire between 2003 and 2007 and this makes the comparison of some individual variables impossible but does not impact on our ability to construct comparable models. In 2003 there was not a question in trust in government but we were able to compute a scale from two questions: trust in the government to deliver state pensions and trust in the government to deliver social benefits (for details on the construction of scales and the exact wording of questions, see Appendix 1). 
To construct our model we use a number of variables as indicators of the underlying constructs of Social Quality in which we were interested. The main variables are shown in Figure 2 in terms of the quadrants of the Social Quality Model. The precise coding and question wording are shown in Appendix 1.  Each scale was constructed after carrying out a Factor Analysis with varimax rotation and calculating the Cronbach‟s Alpha to ensure internal reliability. We use scales because they even out random variability  and are more stable. 
Figure 2: Variables used for Social Quality 

Economic Security 
Income of the household  
Deprivation index 
Ability to afford basic food (absolute poverty) Ability to afford to make ends meet 	Social Cohesion 
General trust 
Trust in government 
Perception of social conflict 	
Social Inclusion 
Social support 
Frequency of contact with friends and relatives Marital status 
Vote in elections 
Membership of political party/trade union 
Feeling left out of society 	Social Empowerment 
Education
Self evaluation of health
Extent of control of one’s life 	

Life satisfaction and Economic Development 
The generally accepted measure of economic growth is changes in GDP.  This grew between 2003 and 2007 in all 10 countries as we noted above (Table 1). However, macroeconomic indicators are not necessarily reflected in the experiences of individual households, because GDP is overall average measure.  If we turn to the variables that constitute our first dimension, economic security, a more mixed picture emerges.  Whilst there was an overall increase in economic security, with only 23.8 per cent having difficulty in making ends meet in 2007 as compared with 37.8 per cent in 2003,  people in the Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia reported having more difficulties in 2007 than in 2003. However, the mean scores on the deprivation index , which indicates if households can afford to buy a range of different goods, suggest that economic situation was improving with the exception of Hungary and Slovenia where it remained stable (Tables 3 and 4). Therefore, the consumption potential of households increased or stabilised over the period, even if many households continued to 
1 Household income was equivalised between countries and we used the pre-coded variable in the data set in each case. 
feel poor. We can conclude that, in line with the increase in GDP, there is evidence of economic growth across the region and a decline in deprivation and absolute poverty, although many households were still struggling to make ends meet. 
-Tables 3 and 4 – 
Other aspects of societal quality did not necessarily improve. For example, there was an overall decline in general trust (Table 5) everywhere except Poland and Romania, and this was one element of social cohesion, so we could argue that this has declined over the period.  If we turn to social inclusion, feeling left out of society has declined sharply from 24.0 to 13.2 per cent, except in Hungary, where it increased.  In terms of social empowerment, Table 6 shows a general increase in social control. The number of people feeling that life was too complicated had dropped from 47.3 percent to 27.4 per cent and this trend was true for all countries except for Romania. 
Therefore it is not the case that indicators of societal quality all show a positive trend – in fact only some of them do. Therefore the effects of economic improvement were not evenly distributed across the region, perhaps due to the rising levels of income inequality (World Bank) In order to look at this more systematically, we now turn to multiple regression analysis. 
Multiple Regression Analysis 
The multiple regression analysis showed that all four elements of the Social Quality Model contributed to explaining the variation in life satisfaction and that the model is stable across the two waves (Tables 8 and 9). In 2003 the model explained 41.8 percent of the variance and in 2007 
39.6 percent. When we entered the countries as dummies with Slovenia as the reference country the variance explained increased marginally to 43.8 percent in 2003 but did not increase significantly in 2007 (Tables 10 and 11). The country Betas were very low even when significant and suggest that in 2003 Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians and Slovaks were marginally less satisfied than would be predicted by the model and Romanians more satisfied. In 2007 the Hungarians were more dissatisfied than would be predicted by the model and the Bulgarians marginally more satisfied. 
-Tables 8 and 9 about here-
In the regression analysis we entered age2 and gender as controls on Step 1. In both years the variance explained was trivial and non significant.  We then went on to add variables from each component of the Social Quality Model I turn in order to look at their contribution to explained variance. In Step 2 we entered the economic security variables and the variance explained increased to 28.6 percent in 
2 We did not use the square of age because previous research indicates that life satisfaction declines with age in these countries and does not follow the U-shape found elsewhere Bohnke, Petra. 2008. "Does society matter? Life satisfaction in an Enlarged Europe." Social Indicators Research 87:189-210.. 
2003 and 25.2 percent in 2007 with self assessed ability to make ends meet making the greatest contribution to the variance explained closely followed by the deprivation scale in both years. Inability to afford basic food also made a significant contribution but income did not. In step 3 we added the social cohesion indicators and the variance explained increased to 36.6 percent in 2003 and 
30.6 in 2007. The economic variables continued to make a strong but reduced contribution to the variance explained and general trust and trust in government also made strong contributions with the conflict scale making a relatively small but significant contribution.  In Step 4 we added in the indicators of social integration and the variance explained increased to 39.2 percent in 2003 and 34.9 percent in 2007.The economic variables remained strong although their contribution declined as did the trust variables. The conflict scale no longer made a significant contribution in 2003 although it continued to make a small but significant contribution in 2007. In terms of social integration the only indicator that made a strong significant contribution in both years is feeling left out with some indication that social support/contact with friends and relatives may make a relatively small contribution. On Step 5 we added the empowerment indicators and the variance explained increased to 41.8 percent in 2003 and 38.8 percent in 2007.  In both years economic variables continued to make a strong contribution as did the trust variables and feeling left out. In both years health status and feeling that life is too complicated made strong contributions to the variance explained. 
If we look at the significant indicators in the model for 2003 and 2007 (Tables 7 and 8) we can see a consistency in them. In terms of economic variables the two that make a significant contribution to the variance explained are the deprivation scale and the ability to make ends meet. In terms of social cohesion it is general trust and trust in government that is important, for social integration it is the feeling of being integrated (or not) that makes a noticeable contribution whilst for empowerment it is health status and feeling in control that are important. However, there are some interesting changes in the relative contribution of the indicators to the variance explained. Firstly we can see that the relative contribution of the economic indicators to the variance explained declines somewhat over the four years as does general trust while the relative contribution of the social integration indicators and social cohesion ones, increases. This suggests that with economic development economic security becomes relatively less important as a determinant of life satisfaction and other factors become relatively more important. 
In 2003, economic security made by far the largest impact on life satisfaction, but social cohesion added 8 percent to the variance explained, social integration 2.6 per cent and social empowerment 2.6 per cent.   By 2007, economic factors were still important, but less important than in 2003, corresponding with the general increase in material well-being overall.  The importance of social cohesion was still high, with trust in government having increased substantially within that quadrant. However, the role of social integration and social empowerment had increased as elements of Social Quality over the period raising the variance explained by 4.3 and 4.9 percent as compared with 2.6 percent and 2.6 percent respectively, indicating that these dimensions of societal well-being start to become important as the role of economic factors declines. 
We can conclude that all steps added to the model but that economic security was more important in 2003 than 2007.  The model had slightly  more explanatory power in 2003, but in both years around 40% of the variance can be explained using only a few indicators. This is because the indicators are themselves indicative of underlying constructs which are posited in the model, as we have argued above. 
Conclusions 
In this paper we have started by looking at overall growth in GDP per capita (PPP US$) in the ten New Member States of the European Union Economic in the first decade of the 21st century, which has been substantial in all the countries under consideration, although not to the same extent. When we look more carefully at the experiences of households in terms of economic security and wellbeing, a more mixed picture emerges. Economic growth at the macro level was not reflected in all countries by an increase of self reported economic security at the household level, possibly on account of variations in the population, including the different positions of ethnic minorities (Siposne Nandori 2011) or because of feelings of relative deprivation – the feeling that they are not as well off as they expected to be or as their neighbours. However, there was a decline in deprivation as measured by the more objective deprivation index in most countries. Therefore, we should beware of using GDP per capita alone as a measure of economic improvement since some subjective (micro level) measures do not correspond with objective (macro level) ones. 
We have argued that an increase in well-being is about more than growth in GDP and that it is necessary to consider social as well as economic indicators.  During the same period, there was a modest but noticeable increase in life satisfaction across the region, with the exception of Hungary. However, the increase in life satisfaction did not follow the same pattern as the increase in macroeconomic indicators and here we need to take into account other factors in the composition of societal quality. 
In order to take a broader perspective and consider societal development we constructed a model derived from sociological theory, the Social Quality Model, that considers social and system integration, agency and structure and takes account of subjective as well as objective indicators. We tested the model by a carrying out an OLS regression with life satisfaction as the independent variable. We demonstrated that our model was stable over time and fitted all the countries. We show that economic factors are important in societal development but so are social cohesion, social integration and empowerment. 
We have shown that the importance of different variables in explaining life satisfaction within Social Quality has changed between 2003 and 2007 with economic security declining in importance, whilst other factors such as social integration and empowerment have become more important.  This corresponds with previous research that has argued that economic factors become less important for determining life satisfaction as the standard of living improves (Bohnke 2008; Fahey and Smyth 2004a).  This is the case for Central and Eastern European New Member States and we are able to show which aspects of social development are now more important for citizens of these countries. It is possible that at least some of these countries have now reached the level of development where economic well-being is no longer so important for individual well-being because it is taken as given. However, it is also likely that the economic recession, which struck the countries of Central and Eastern Europe especially hard during the period after the last survey was completed, would have had an impact on these findings, but this will have to be investigated in subsequent research. 
This has important implications for public policy. It means that improving economic performance will not increase the quality of society unless there is also a decline in poverty and improvements are reflected in households‟ ability to manage their economic well-being.  A general improvement in GDP per capita does not necessarily translate into better well-being for households as we need to take into account the social and economic structure of the society.  So it is insufficient to concentrate on these economic factors alone. Improving the quality of society also involves improving the cohesion and governance of the society – the levels of general trust and the trust in government institutions, for example, the former of which had declined.  However, once these structural features have been addressed, the quality of society depends upon levels of social integration, which become relatively more important as economic prosperity increases, and empowerment -that is the ability of individuals to feel that they can control their environment. Therefore once a given level of economic stabilisation has been reached, governments need to focus more upon improving health, education and the participation of citizens enabling them to take control of their lives and their environment and it may be time to do this in the new member states of Eastern Europe. 

This paper points to a number of topics for further research which were beyond the scope of this paper. For example, we have not included objective variables such as the Gini index of inequality or levels of unemployment, which might have helped to explain the differences between 2003 and 2007.  Furthermore, we have used only one variable as a dependent variable – life satisfaction – and there should arguably be a more comprehensive measure of well-being, which is something we will continue to work upon.  Other indicators of the four dimensions could perhaps be found, although the ones selected here explain a lot of the variation in societies. 
References 

Abbott, P. and R. Sapsford (2006). "Life satisfaction in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine." Journal of Happiness Studies 7(2): 251-287.	
Abbott, P. and C. Wallace (forthcoming). "Social Quality: A way to measure the quality of society." Social Indicators Research DOI:10.1007/s 11205-100-9571-0.
Alber, Jens, Tony Fahey, and Chiara Saraceno (Eds.). 2008. Handbook of Quality of Life in the Enlarged European Union. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. 
Allardt, Erik. 1993. "Having, Loving and Being: an alternative to the Swedish Model of Welfare Resarch." The Quality of Life 8:88-95. 
Anderson, Robert, _ranislav Mikulid, Greet Vermeylen, Maija Lyly-Yrjanainen, and Valentina Zigante. 2009. Second European Quality of Life Survey -Overview. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. 
Baltescu, S. (2010). Happiness in the New Post-Communist EU Member States. SSRN eLibrary, http://ssrn.com/paper=1957010
Beck, W, L. Van der Maesen, and A.  Walker. 1997. The Social Quality of Europe. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. 
Beck, Wolfgang, Laurent van der Maesen, Fleur Thomes, and Alan Walker. 2001. Social Quality: A Vision for Europe. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. 
Bohnke, Petra. 2008. "Does society matter? Life satisfaction in an Enlarged Europe." Social Indicators Research 87:189-210. 
Bonini, Astra, N. 2008. "Cross-national variation in individual life satisfaction: effects of national wealth, human development and environmental conditions." Social Indicators Research 87:223-236. 
Craib, Ian. 1984. Modern Social Theory -from Parsons to Habermas. London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf. 
Delhey, Jan. 2001. "Prospects of catching up for New EU members. Lessons for the Accession Countries to he European Union from previous enlargements." Social Indicators Research 56:205-231. 
Diener, Ed, and Eunkook Suh. 1997. "Measuring quality of life:economic, social and subjective indicators." Social Indicators Research 40:189-216. 
Easterlin, Richard, A. 1974. "Does economic growth improve the human lot?" in Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramovitz, edited by Paul David, and Melvin Reder, W. New York: Academic Press Inc. 
—. 2000. "Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?" Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 27:35-47. 
Fahey, Tony, and Emer Smyth. 2004a. "Do subjective indicators measure welfare? Evidence from 33 European societies." European Societies 6:5-27.
Genov, Nikolai. 1998. "Transformation and anomie: problems of quality of life in Bulgaria." Social Indicators Research 43:197-209. 
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Outline of a theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
Grasso, Marco, and Luciano Canova. 2008. "An assessment of the quality of life in the European Union based on the social indicators approach." Social Indicators Research 87:1-25. 
Guriev, S., and E. Zhuravskaya. 2009. "(Un) Happiness in transition." Journal of Economic Perspectives 23:143-168. 
Hagerty, Micheal, R., Robert Cummins, A., L Abbott, Ferris, Kenneth Land, Alex Michalos, C., Mark Peterson, Andrew Sharpe, Joseph Sirgy, and Joachim Vogel. 2001. "Quality of life indexes for national policy: review and agenda for research." Social Indicators Research 55:1-96. 
Haller, Max, and Marcus Hadler. 2006. "How Social Relations and Structures can Produce Happiness and Unhappiness: An International Comparative Analysis " Social Indicators Research 75:169-216. 
Hayo, B. (2007). "Happiness in Transition." Economic Systems 31(2): 204-221.
Headey, Bruce, Ruud Muffels, and Mark Wooden. 2008. "Money does not buy happiness: Or does it? A reassessment based on teh combined effects of wealth, income and consumption." Social Indicators Research 87:65-82. 
Layard, Richard. 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a New Sciecne. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
Lelkes, O. (2006). "Tasting freedom: happiness, religion and economic transitoin." Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 59(2): 173-194.
Lockwood, David. 1992. Solidarity and Schism: 'the problem of disorder' in Durkheimian and Marxist sociology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 
Namazie, C, and P. Sandfrey. 2001. "Happiness in transition: the case of Kyrgystan." Review of Development Economics 5:392-405. 
Nussbaum, Martha, C., and Armatya Sen (Eds.). 1993. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
Phillips, David. 2006. Quality of Life. Concept, Policy, Practice. London and New York: Routledge. 
Rose, Richard, Neil Munro, and Claire Wallace. 2009a. Second European Quality of Life Survey: Quality of life in Europe, 2003–2007. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. 
Sablonniere, de la, R., D. Yaylor, C. Perozzo, and N. Sadykova. 2009. "Reconceptualising relative deprivation in the context of dramatic change: the challenge confronting the people of Kyrgystan." European Journal of Social Psychology 39:325-345. 
Selezneva, E. (2011). "Surveying transitional experience and subjective well-being: income, work and family." Economic Systems 35(2): 139-157.
Sen, Armatya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books. 
Siposne Nandori, Eszter 2011. "Subjective poverty and its relation to objective poverty concepts in Hungary." Social Indicators Research 102:537-556. 
Stanca, Luca. 2010. "The geography of economics and happiness: spatial patterns in the effects of economic conditions on well-being." Social Indicators Research 95:115-133. 
Stiglitz, Joseph, E., Armatya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. 2009. "Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress." Paris. 
Watson, Dorothy, Florian Pichler, and Claire Wallace. 2009. Subjective Well-Being in Europe. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. 

Appendix 
Variables Used in the Analysis Dependent Variable 
Social Satisfaction 
All things considered, how satisfied would you say you are with your life these days? Please tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means very dissatisfied and 10 means very satisfied. 
To construct our model we use a number of variables as indicators of the underlying constructs we were interested in. Age – a continuous variable Gender coded 1 = male, 2 = female 
For economic security we used: 
1. 	The income of the household; 
Please can you tell me how much your household’s NET income is? If you don’t know the 
exact figure, please give an estimate. 
2. 	A deprivation index constructed from a series of question concerning the ability to buy essential goods and services as a measure of relative deprivation3. 
There are some things that many people cannot afford, even if they would like. For each of 
the following ------can your household afford it if you want it? 
Keeping your house adequately warm 
Paying for a week’s annual holiday away from home(not staying with relatives) 
Replacing any worn-out furniture A meal with meat chicken or fish every second day Buying new rather than second hand clothes Having friends or family for a drink or a meal at least once a month 
Cronbach‟s Alpha: 2003 0.86; 2007 0.84. 
3. 	Inability to afford to buy basic food as a measure of absolute poverty coded 1 = yeas, 2 = no; 
Has your household at any time during the last 12 months run out of the money to pay for food? 
4. 	Assessment of adequacy of the income of the household as a more subjective measurer of relative deprivation, coded from 1= very easily to 6 with difficulty. 
A household may have different sources of income and more than one household member 
may contribute to it. Thinking of your household’s total monthly income: is your household 
able to make ends meet----? 
For social cohesion we used: 
1. 	General trust; 
3 All scales were constructed using factor analysis with varimax rotation and checked for reliability using 
_hronbach’s !lpha. 
Generally speaking would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people? Please tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means that you can’t be too careful and 10 means that most people can be trusted. 
2. 	Trust in government 
2003 A scale computed from trust in the state  pension and social security systems with 1 = a great deal of trust and 4 no trust at all . 
How much trust do you have in the ability of the following two systems to deliver when you need it? State pension system, Social benefit system 
Chronbach‟s Alpha 0.78 
2007 Measured on a 10 point scale where 1 = do not trust at all and 10 = trust completely; 
Please tell me how much you personally trust the government? 
3. 	Perception of social conflict – a scale computed from the responses to a series of questions on the extent of tension between different social groups 
In all countries there sometimes exists tension between social groups. In your opinion how much tension is there between each of the following groups in this country? Poor and rich people Management and workers Men and women Old people and young people Different racial groups and ethnic groups Different religious groups 
Cronbach‟s Alpha: 2003 0.7; 2007 0.76 
For social integration we used 
1. 	The answers to a series of questions on social support recoded  to would not get support and would get support and  entered as dummies -0 = no support, 1=support; 
From whom would you get support in each of the following situations? 
If you needed help around the house when ill If you needed advice about a serious personal or family matter If you were feeling bit depressed and wanting to talk to someone If you urgently needed to raise a 1000 Euros to face an emergency (NMS = 500 Euros) 
2. 	The answers to a series of questions on frequency of contact with friends and relatives dichotomised to frequent contact (once a week or more) other. As we were interested in social integration we coded those without relatives as other; 
On average, thinking of the people living outside your household how often do you have direct (face-to-face contact with any of your children, your mother or father, any of your friends and neighbours? 
1	Married – coded 0 = not married/living with a partner, 1 = married/living with a partner; 
2	Vote in elections as an indicator of identification with the society, coded 1 Yes, 2 No; 

Some people don’t vote nowadays for one reason or another. Did you vote in the last 
(country) national election? 
5. Active in  a political party/trade union as the only measure in the data set for formal social capital available in both years, coded 1 = yes, 2 = no 
2003 Over the past year, have you attended a meeting of a trade union, or a political party, a political action group, attended a protest or demonstrated or signed a petition? 
2007 Over the past year, have you attended a meeting of a trade union, or a political party or a political action group? 
6. The extent to which the respondent felt left out of society  measured on a scale from 1 = strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree as a subjective indicator of social integration. 
I feel left out of society 
For social empowerment we used; 
1. Education coded from 1 = none to 7 = tertiary education (ISCED) 
What is the highest level of education that you completed? 
2. Self evaluation of health from 1 very good to 5 very bad; 
In general, would you say your health is --
3. The extent to which respondents felt in control of their lives. 
Life has become so complicated today that I almost can’t find my way 
Coded from 1strongly agree to 5 strongly disagree