Uncertainty, Labor Markets, and Group Heuristics

Author(s):  
Michael J. Donnelly

In this chapter, I examine the effect of uncertainty on the relationship between ethnic and regional incomes, linked fate, and attitudes toward redistribution. Uncertainty is a key ingredient in heuristic theory, as heuristics for learning about future interests are unnecessary where future interests are certain. I test the argument using data from a survey of Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Slovak data from the European Social Survey, and the British Household Panel Survey.

2021 ◽  
pp. 147490412110146
Author(s):  
Ellen Boeren

This paper borrows insights from the literature on European welfare regimes to analyse the relationship between happiness and participation in adult education. The academic literature and policy discourses on adult education tend to claim that participation in learning is correlated with happiness despite the lack of strong European comparative empirical evidence on this topic. This paper uses data from the latest Wave of the European Social Survey to analyse the happiness perceptions of nearly 20,000 adults between the ages of 25 and 64 who live in 16 European countries (15 European Union countries and the United Kingdom). Results indicate that while adult learners on average tend to be happier than non-learners, this correlation weakens when controlling for determinants of participation and happiness and for the countries in which these adults live. Confirming the importance of welfare regimes, this study found that adults in Finland tend to be happier than those in other countries, regardless of their participation in adult education. Happiness scores were lowest in Bulgaria and Hungary, countries with low participation rates in adult education and with the biggest differences in happiness scores between learners and non-learners. It is argued that the presence of well-structured adult learning provision might be an important characteristic of welfare regimes but that happiness is determined by much more than being an adult learner.


Author(s):  
Dimiter Toshkov

AbstractThe link between age and happiness has been the subject of numerous studies. It is still a matter of controversy whether the relationship is U-shaped, with happiness declining after youth before bouncing back in old age, or not. While the effect of age has been examined conditional on income and other socio-demographic variables, so far, the interactions between age and income have remained insufficiently explored. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article shows that the nature of the relationship between age and happiness varies strongly with different levels of relative income. People in the lowest decile of the income distribution experience a ‘hockey stick’: a deep decline in self-reported happiness until around age 50–55 and a small bounce back in old age. The classic U-curve is found mostly in the middle-income ranks. For people at the top of the income distribution, average happiness does not vary much with age. These results demonstrate the important role of income in moderating the relationship between age and happiness.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Márton Hadarics

We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between conservation motivation (or openness) and personal ideological preferences on the left-right dimension, and how this relationship pattern differs between Western and Central & Eastern European (CEE) respondents. Using data from the European Social Survey (2012) we found that individual-level of conservation motivation reduces cultural egalitarianism in both the Western European and the CEE regions, but its connection with economic egalitarianism is only relevant in the CEE region where it fosters economic egalitarianism. Since both forms of egalitarianism were related to leftist ideological preferences in Western Europe, but in the CEE region only economic egalitarianism was ideologically relevant, we concluded that the classic “rigidity of the right” phenomenon is strongly related to cultural (anti)egalitarianism in Western Europe. At the same time, conservation motivation serves as a basis for the “rigidity of the left” in the post-socialist CEE region, in a great part due to the conventional egalitarian economic views.


Author(s):  
Michael J. Donnelly

In this chapter, I argue that the salience of particular groups is affected by the rhetoric of institutions and political leaders. To test this argument, I draw on an observational difference in survey of Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom and experiments in that survey and two others, one of which includes Italy. I show that ethnic and regional arguments shape the relationship between group incomes and attitudes toward redistribution, but that these cues do not affect everyone equally.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Grasso

Abstract It is a common theme in the literature on voter turnout that advanced Western democracies have entered a period of political disengagement and that it is young people, in particular, that participate less. In this paper, I analyse data from the three waves of the European Social Survey and show that while young people are in general less likely to be politically involved than their elders, these differences are greater in the United Kingdom than in Italy. In addition, I show that controlling for education accounts for differences in political participation between young and older people in Italy. However, education does not appear to mediate youth political involvement in the United Kingdom so that normative concerns about youth political disengagement appear to be more appropriate for the latter of the two countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1136-1150
Author(s):  
Rania F. Valeeva

Previous research has shown that the well-being of people in Western societies varies consistently. To understand these differences, we focus on the relationship between healthcare use and well-being, since previous research has shown that poor health and lack of social support reduce well-being. Based on the findings of the previous research, we hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between healthcare use and well-being, and that the strength of this relationship increases with the years of schooling. We tested these hypotheses in 24 countries using data (N = 40,249) from the European Social Survey. The data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression models. Our results indicate cross-national differences in the relationship between healthcare use for serious health problems and well-being. Moreover, they suggest that the extent of education matters for this relationship, however its influence differs across countries. Further research is needed to explain these cross-national differences.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Mai Beilmann ◽  
Laur Lilleoja

The article is dedicated to explaining why value similarity fosters generalised social trust in high-trust societies. Previous findings by Beilmann and Lilleoja suggest that value similarity is more important in generating individual-level social trust in countries where the overall levels of social trust are higher, while in countries with a low level of social trust, congruity of the personal value structure with the country-level value structure tends to be coupled with lower trustfulness on the part of individuals. The article explores the meso-level indicators that could explain this relationship. The relationship between social trust and human values was examined in a sample of 2,051 people in Estonia, using data from the European Social Survey, round 7. The results suggest that when differences in socio-economic factors are controlled for, value similarity remains a significant factor in fostering generalised social trust in Estonian society. However, its direct effect is relatively low when compared with predictors such as trust in certain institutions, economic well-being, and ethnicity. Trust in the legal system and the police plays a particularly important role in fostering generalised social trust in a high-trust society wherein people believe that other people in general treat them honestly and kindly.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 542-584
Author(s):  
Jan-Ocko Heuer ◽  
Thomas Lux ◽  
Steffen Mau ◽  
Katharina Zimmermann

Abstract Do people in different countries understand and frame the principle of meritocracy differently? This question is the starting point for this cross-national analysis of the moral repertoires of meritocracy in four countries: Germany, Norway, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. The authors pursue a mixed methods approach, using data from the European Social Survey 2016 and qualitative data from group discussions. In these discussions, citizens openly talked about issues like inequality and social policy, which allows us to study their understandings and framings of meritocracy. The authors show that the issue of unequal rewards does not only find different levels of support, but also that people – corresponding to the context they live in – have different understandings of which merits should count. The authors identify a ‘market success meritocracy’ in the UK, a work-centred understanding in Germany, a ‘common good meritocracy’ in Norway, and non-salience of this issue in Slovenia.


2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Poloni-Staudinger

This study asks under what domestic conditions environmental groups in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany will overcome the collective action, resource, and ideological impediments to cooperative activity. A political opportunity structure (POS) approach is employed which looks at the relationship between elite alliances and domestic cleavages and the choice to engage in domestic as well as transnational cooperation. Using data gathered through content analysis over a nearly twenty-five year period, I find that changes in domestic opportunities influence the choice of environmental groups to engage in cooperative activities. An open POS is found to depress both domestic and transnational cooperation, while a closed POS increases cooperative activities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Dudal ◽  
Dieter Verhaest ◽  
Piet Bracke

There is little theoretical understanding of why educational inequalities in depression are larger in some countries than in others. The current research tries to fill this gap by focusing on the way in which important labor market processes, specifically upgrading and polarization, affect the relationship between education and depression. Analyses are based on a subsample, aged between 20 and 65, in 26 countries participating in the European Social Survey (N = 56,881) in 2006, 2012, and 2014. The results indicate that educational inequalities are lower the more a country’s labor market is upgraded, and we suggest that this is a consequence of an amelioration of the labor market position of the lower educated. Analysis shows that polarization is related to more educational inequalities in depression for women. However, central mediating processes are not confirmed, and new perspectives on these mechanisms will be discussed.


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