CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN FAMILY STRUCTURES, FAMILY RELATIONS AND VALUES IN EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM

For more than four decades, people of Central and Eastern Europe were subject to close supervision, suppression of initiative and of freedom of choice, paternalism, sanctioning of disobedience, and rewards unrelated to effort and performance (Friedlmeier & Gavreliuc, in press; Schwartz & Bardi, 1997). The breakdown of the communist system was one of the most significant historical events of the last decades, with major socio-political and economic consequences. Different from gradual social change (e.g., the growing number of older people in the modern world), the collapse of communism is an example of abrupt social change (Pinquart, Silbereisen, & Juang, 2004). In part due to the great complexity of this phenomenon, little research has focused on this latter type of social change.