Interethnic Factors as Predictors of the Subjective Well-Being of Minority Individuals in a Context of Recent Societal Changes

Contact: Larissa Kus, Colleen Ward, & James Liu

Objectives

This study looks at the factors that predict life satisfaction among ethnic Russians living in Estonia. Its examines the impact of Russian and Estonian identity and history on feelings of relative deprivation, illegitimate status relationships, and time comparisons while also looking at these factors’ subsequent effect on life satisfaction.

Outcomes

The findings showed:

• Russian identity and the importance of Russian history were associated with lower levels of life satisfaction, while Estonian identity and the importance of Estonian history were linked to higher levels of life satisfaction.
• When ethnic Russians felt more deprived in comparison to Estonians, found the status relations between the two groups to be illegitimate, and compared their current status to that under the Soviet era more often, they tended to have lower levels of life satisfaction.
• Feelings of relative deprivation and time comparisons linked history to life satisfaction.
• Beliefs about illegitimate status relationships linked both Estonian and Russian history and Russian identity to life satisfaction.

You can access the article, "Interethnic Factors as Predictors of the Subjective Well-Being of Minority Individuals in a Context of Recent Societal Changes" here.