SOCIAL CLASS STRUCTURE IN THE BALTIC COUNTRIES

Abstract

Topic of income distribution and inequality is often discussed in nowadays. It is necessary to assess the Baltic countries social classes’ structure, which could justify the need for changes. However, there are no common criteria how society should be divided into social classes. The problem is how society can be classified into the rich, the middle class and the poor and what distribution of society would be “fair”. The purpose of the article is to identify social classes’ structure of the Baltic countries and to evaluate how “fair” income’s distribution in these countries is. The research has a structure consisting of three parts. Review of society class structure classifications and analysis is given in the first part. Identification of “fair” society class structure and analysis of society class structure in the Baltic countries are presented in following parts. Thus, in this article the solution how to assess society structure of incomes is proposed and results about income distribution in the Baltic countries are given. Analysis showed the need for further deeper research. It is necessary to develop a comprehensive model of poverty risk assessment, which could allow evaluating not just by income inequality but also could include other characteristics such as wealth, education, occupation, work, etc. Moreover, it would allow preparing a methodology, which could help evaluating countries by their social class structure according to their level of economic development.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.18.1.4388