Estonia is one of the three Baltic countries, along with Latvia and Lithuania. Three are the important dates for this country that are worth mentioning, from a political and economic point of view: i) August 20, 1991: Estonia becomes an independent country from the former Soviet Union; ii) May 1, 2004: Estonia, along with nine other countries (mainly from Eastern Europe) join the European Union; iii) January 1, 2011: Estonia joins the euro zone, the euro is therefore adopted as the new currency. The population of Estonia is 1.3 million inhabitants (according to the last census carried out in 2014) and the GDP per capita in 2017 was estimated at €21,400 for 2017: this is considered the best performance among the three Baltic countries. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why violent video games should not be banned'?Get the original essay Estonia suffered severely from the 2008-2009 global crisis, with total real GDP falling by 15% and recovery The following years were quite slow. In 2017, real GDP growth was 4%, and growth of around 3% is expected for 2018 and 2019, according to the European Commission. The inflation rate increased in 2017 to 3.7%, due to the global increase in prices of goods such as food and energy. The forecast for 2018 and 2019 is a 3% reduction. At this point, we analyze in more depth some more relevant characteristics and aspects of the Estonian economic system. The country has a good level of education with a positive impact on the workforce: the unemployment rate decreased by 10% compared to 2010 (in 2009, there was in fact a peak of almost 20% , while today it stands at around 7%), although this change has also been driven by a parallel decline in the working-age population gradually over the past decade. The high employment rate is one of the drivers of private consumption growth and a relatively low inflation rate. The country has also been faced with a sharp increase in wages, both private and public, and in the minimum wage level. , due to the fact that many potential skilled workers preferred to leave the country rather than stay there. The only wage problem that Estonia still faces is the gender pay gap, which stands at 26.9%, well above the European average (around 10 percentage points), and this is mainly due to very flexible parental leave. Estonian system: unlike other countries, the new parent who benefits (in most cases a woman) has the right to suspend their employment for up to 18 months from the birth of the new child. The effect is that women face more difficulties re-entering the job market, creating a de facto breaking point in their career. We use wages to introduce one of Estonia's main economic problems: income inequality. Indeed, the Gini coefficient, one of the most important indicators of inequality in a specific country, is estimated at 0.35, one of the highest values ​​among OECD countries. This situation results from a combination of different factors: for example, after-tax distribution and (in the case of older people) low pensions. We therefore see that certain categories of people are more likely to become poorer in the years to come: in addition to the elderly, this is also the case, for example, of the unemployed and families with three or more children. This is not to say that the state is doing nothing to alleviate this problem: first of all, a considerable part of social spending is aimed at families and, more importantly, it is planned..