Abstract:

This paper is analysing the micro-economic behaviour of households in seven post- Communist societies: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The first chapter of the paper is describing the structure and the activities of the Austrian Paul Lazarsfeld-Society, the second chapter is describing the cross-national and annual survey-research-programme NEW DEMOCRACIES BAROMETER, which forms the data basis of this paper. The third chapter deals with the economic situation of households in 1994 compared with the situation under the command economy before 1989 whereas the fourth chapter is describing the subjective satisfaction with the economic situation of the household in 1994. Chapter 5 is analysing the financial situation of post-Communist households in general, a specific theme of the actual financial situation is dealt with in chapter 6 which is explaining how households are getting by with a regular income within the official economy. The concluding chapters deal with micro-economic expectations for the future: chapter 7 is describing the expected economic situation of the household in five years time, whereas chapter 8 is rounding up the paper by showing the extent of optimism and pessimism on the micro- economic level in post-Communist societies.