Gender and Family Normative Attitudes in Russian-Speakers in Estonia and Latvia Compared to Other Estonians, Latvians, and Russians in Russia

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to comparing gender and family attitudes in Russian speakers in Estonia and Latvia to ethnic majority members in their respective countries and to Russians. The obtained results demonstrate that at least gender and family related attitude in Latvia and Estonia follow the logic not of marginalization, but of polarization. Instead of developing relatively moderate views – more traditionalist than in Estonians and Latvians yet more modern than in Russians, Russian speaking minority members in the Baltics overshoot the Russian majority living in Russia by the degree of their traditionalism. These results have important practical implications demonstrating a potential obstacle in the way of integration of ethnic minorities – their opposing their own attitudes to the attitudes held by the majority even in the spheres not directly related to ethnonational issues and for this reasons are usually overlooked when discussing integration of ethnic minority members.