Love paramount for men of Estonia

Photo: Arvet Mägi / Virumaa Teataja

At least one stereotype to be buried, near term: even if shy so to tell, what Estonian guys want most is love, kids and a home. The material values of past decades are dethroned, reveals a fresh study on males.

Averaging 181 centimetres in height, in all likelihood overweight or outright obese once over 35. Cares not for health but says sickness is no problem really. Gets paid rather well but instead of the money, he most highly esteems love, a family and a home of his own.

His entire working life is basically spent in stress. In private life, he does stay faithful to his wife but by the age of 55 has probably committed the occasional act of adultery – with a gal found over the Internet, say.  

This is the portrait of an Estonian male based on fresh study by University of Tartu applied research centre. Namely, last fall and winter, they asked over 2,000 men aged 16–54 for their opinions on family, work, health and sexual life. All for one purpose: to be able to generalise what kind of men we actually are.

According to senior University of Tartu research fellow and an author of the study Mare Ainsaar, the aggregate portrait says a lot while in reality men come rather different – just like the ladies. The only hard and fast rule would be that almost all of them buckle their seat belts while driving.

But what’s even more important: «Estonian men are very children and family centred, which to us was a big surprise,» admitted the scientist.

The observation is something remarkable. A possible explanation being: Estonia’s transition phase may be behind us, material wellbeing achieved, and the soft values on the upswing again among men. At that, this carries hopes for the natural increase problem perhaps to be solved.

«In some countries people have stopped wanting children. Not in Estonia. In men of Estonia, the desire to have babies has even increased a bit, which is an excellent indicator on the European scale. The will is there; the issue now is how to realise it and why it does not work,» said Ms Ainsaar.

Here, the deeper aspects of the study come into play. Truth be told, it is rather plainly revealed the troubles and where an Estonian man needs to take an honest look in the mirror.

The older the fatter

First the health, of course. By the age of 34, Estonian men are of normal weight by body mass index. Among those aged 44, being overweight prevails. By 55, a quarter of guys are obese.

The authors of health-chapters of the document would underline that this is the sharpest problem plaguing men currently: the overweight men will never complain over health, but their wives face very early widowhood.

Serious or severe symptoms of depression are found with 21 percent of the men while age plays not role in stress levels. The stress, in its turn, boosts risk behaviour like smoking, drinking and drunk driving.

A third of Estonian guys are daily smokers and the percentage seems not to shrink for earlier age groups – it rather goes up. The most frequent drinkers fall between ages of 35–44 – of these, every third consumes alcohol at least a couple of times a week. Over this past year, 17 percent of men have committed drunk driving with 5 percent repeatedly so.

All of the above hits fertility. Every eighth man has attempted for 12 months straight to have children – in vain. This is a pity as, in reality, they would not want just one – 48 percent would definitely want two, and 34 percent would go for three. Thos who want more children are the healthier, the rural-dwelling and – strangely – those that have lived abroad for a while.

«Perhaps this is because those who travel abroad are more active and have a more optimistic outlook in Estonia. They earn money and that adds confidence to men,» analysed Ms Ainsaar.

In some areas, the ice has begun to break. The widespread stereotypes would say an Estonian guy is materialistic and hardworking while failing to take care of himself and in constant stress for his position.

As admitted by Ms Ainsaar, the tensions and the stress at works have not gone anywhere. Even so, the men put less and less emphasis on materialistic values and though they still work overtime, men in Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Portugal are more «industrious». When it comes to tending to one’s appearance, this for Estonian guys ranks 7^th.

Not easy with ladies

The study shows social relations and maintaining these is difficult for male Estonians. For instance, sexual risk behaviour is rather common: the older the guy, the less likely to use a condom in casual sex. 16 percent admitted to having been diagnosed some venereal disease. About a quarter has sought for sex partners over the Internet and have had sexual intercourse with the one they found.

Though by the age of 55 every third man has cheated on his wife or partner, Ms Ainsaar says this does not say Estonian men are unfaithful. «Actually, I was expecting it to be much worse. While following the media, one may get the impression that all have multiple partners, but in reality one is the norm,» said the scientist.

A stable partner is usually found by age 34. With the partner, a whopping 94 percent are totally satisfied or rather satisfied. Often, they stay with their wives even though raising children is for men often tiresome, saps the satisfaction with the relationship and makes for a motivation to stay at work longer into the night.

Now, men, women and the state have a lot to learn from the study. «The Estonian guy is much more tender in his soul than he dares to show, and he is wise to intentionally follow that path. No need to be ashamed, in real life, that family and kids are what they are working for,» is the advice of Ms Ainsaar to men. «The message for the ladies is: at differing ages, the men do greatly vary.»

The data is now sent to the Government Office where social scientists will be able to see if some phenomena need political solutions. As an example of that, Ms Ainsaar said every tenth man had been mentally, physically or sexually violent towards his partner over the past year and not all thought this worthy of contempt.

A true picture of Estonian male-female relations ought to emerge within a couple of months when a like study is disclosed regarding the behaviour of Estonian women.