ABSTRACT

The Estonia is one of the East European countries in transition, and the calls for preserving traditional gender roles and values are being supported by the men and women themselves. The processes wherein resourceful actors attempt to produce positively valued states under constraints particular to the social circumstances. The lack of reliable social information has had a strong influence on the transmission of cultural traditions. The more closed to information the system is, the stronger the impact of cultural traditions on people's behaviour. The neoconservative social movements with slogans such as, To fill the Estonian land with Estonians', brought together people frightened by the decrease of Estonians. The expected individual rewards to be gains by preserving the traditional gender pattern in Estonia can be divided into two main groups. The first group includes rewards for all family members. The second group includes rewards generally considered beneficial for women as females.