The transition from socialism to capitalism has led to diverging
socioeconomic outcomes for the Post-Communist countries of Central and
Eastern Europe (CEE). While common social problems of capitalist societies were
virtually unknown prior to the collapse of socialism, they have been on the increase
since the introduction of comprehensive market-oriented reforms. The objective
of our article is to investigate the impact of the rising inequality in income in
CEE and the effects of distinct trajectories on the change of individual orientations
toward social inequality in Post-Communist East Europe. We present statistical
data on structural changes and apply linear and logistic regression on data from
the ISSP survey 2009 on the perception of social inequality. Our findings suggest
that both individual and structural conditions are relevant for attitudes related to
inequality. First, objective inequality itself is not associated with individually
perceived income differences. Second, different Post-Communist welfare regimes
indicate an effect on such perceptions as well as on the individuals’ assessment of
the society they live in. Further, the socioeconomic position affects the attitudes
toward a redistribution policy
