Richard Estes, MSW, DSW

Professor

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Research - Current Projects

Social Development Trends in Transition Economies: The Social Impact of Rapid Economic Change on Central And Eastern Europe, the Successor States to the Former Soviet Union, China, and Mongolia

Project Description:
Nearly 30 percent of the world's population--some 1.7 billion persons--are undergoing the "transition" from centrally-planned to market economic systems. The majority of these people reside in Central and Eastern Europe and in countries of Central Asia. China, one of Asia's two population giants, Mongolia, Vietnam, and other countries in Southeast Asia also are undergoing the transition. In all cases, the difficulties involved in effecting the transition have proven more complex and less responsive to change than initially had been anticipated, especially in Central Asia and other countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU).

This project seeks to assess the extent to which the successor states to the Former Soviet Union (FSU), the newly autonomous countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), China, Mongolia and selected other countries engaged in the transition from centrally-planned to market economies were succeeding in advancing their new social development agenda. More specifically, the project will report the results of a comprehensive survey of the region's recent social achievements in the context of worldwide social development trends since 1970.

To that end, the project will: 1) report the results obtained through application of a statistically weighted version of the author's previously developed Index of Social Progress (WISP) to an analysis of world and regional development since 1970; 2) identify worldwide and regional development accomplishments over the past 30 years; 3) contrast the region's 25-year social development accomplishments with those of other geo-political regions; 4) identify the region's current social development leaders (SLs) and socially least developing countries (SLDCs); and, 5) provid baseline data against which the region's future developments outcomes can be assessed.

Project Sponsors:
Save the Children/Mongolia and the United Nations Regional Development Center, Nagoya

Project Dates:
1996-2003

Project Staff:
Richard J. Estes, Principal Investigator

Research Sites:
China, Mongolia and the Russian Federation

Related Publications:
Richard J. Estes (2003). "Social Development in the Newly Independent States of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 1991-2000," [in preparation].

Estes, Richard J. (1996). "Social Development Trends in Asia, 1970-1994: The Challenges of a New Century," Social Indicators Research 37(2):119-148.

Estes, Richard J. (1998). "Social development trends in the successor states to the former Soviet Union: The Search for a new paradigm," in Kempe R. Hope, Jr., Challenges of Transformation and Transition From Centrally Planned to Market Economies, UNCRD Research Report Series No. 26. (Nagoya: United Nations Centre for Regional Development), pp. 13-30.