Trends of household and personal income: the case of Estonia from the 1950s to 1980s

Martin Klesment, Estonian Interuniversity Population Research Centre

Household income and expenditure surveys constitute a central source of information on population's standard of living. The social and economic history of the USSR is still under-researched due to non-comparable aggregate statistical data from the period. This paper focuses on the household and personal income trends in Estonia in the post-WW2 period. The data used comes from periodical surveys conducted by Soviet statistics that collected detailed information on sources and amounts of household income, characteristics of household members, housing conditions. Additionally the transformation from the Soviet society to market economy is studied on the basis of labour survey and the Estonian FFS. The study overcomes the reliability problem of Soviet statistics by employing individual data as opposed to aggregate figures. In a broader framework, the study could contribute to the understanding of economic well-being of different groups in the former Soviet Union.