Relationships between cycles of economic expansion in construction and craft workers’ job satisfaction and preferences

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Albattah ◽  
Yongwei Shan ◽  
Paul M. Goodrum ◽  
Timothy R.B. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Physical Work ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Fundamental Factor ◽  
Job Preferences ◽  
Job Preference ◽  
The Us ◽  
Overall Job Satisfaction

When construction craft workers consider potential career alternatives, overall job satisfaction is a fundamental factor that influences their retention and productivity. This paper analyzes changes in job satisfaction and job preferences of craft workers in the US construction industry across successive economic recession–expansion cycles. The analysis used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) collected from 1974 to 2014 and compared job satisfaction and preferences of construction craft workers with those in other industries. The authors found that job preferences of the sampled construction respondents changed with each successive recession–expansion cycle and that the desire for high income became more prevalent than that for a sense of accomplishment in physical work, which has traditionally been the top job preference among construction workers in general. Overall job satisfaction among sampled construction respondents was equal to or slightly exceeded the overall job satisfaction of sampled respondents in other industries. Industry craft recruitment efforts can use these insights to design future recruitment and retention strategies.

National identity, a blessing or a curse? The divergent links from national attachment, pride, and chauvinism to social and political trust

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Gustavsson ◽  
Ludvig Stendahl
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Internet Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Attachment

AbstractIs it true that national identity increases trust, as liberal nationalists assume? Recent research has studied this side of the ‘national identity argument’ by focusing on conceptions of the content of national identity (often civic or ethnic) and their links to social, rather than political, trust. This paper argues that if we take social identity theory seriously, however, we need to complement this picture by asking how varying the strength – rather than the content – of a person’s sense of their national identity affects both their social and political trust. We break down the different dimensions of national identity, hypothesizing and empirically verifying that there are divergent links from national attachment, national pride, and national chauvinism to social and political trust. We do so with data from the US (General Social Survey) and the Netherlands (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences ), thus expanding current knowledge of national identity and trust to a highly relevant yet neglected European case.

scholarly journals Who engages in the arts in the United States? A comparison of several types of engagement using data from The General Social Survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica K. Bone ◽  
Feifei Bu ◽  
Meg E. Fluharty ◽  
Elise Paul ◽  
Jill K. Sonke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gradient ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arts Engagement

Abstract Background Engaging in the arts is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While it is generally accepted that there is a social gradient in traditional arts and cultural activities, such as attending classical music performances and museums, previous studies of arts engagement in the US have not adequately investigated whether similar demographic and socioeconomic factors are related to other forms of arts engagement. Methods Using cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey (GSS) in the US, we examined which demographic, socioeconomic, residential, and health factors were associated with attendance at arts events, participation in arts activities, membership of creative groups, and being interested in (but not attending) arts events. We combined data from 1993 to 2016 in four analytical samples with a sample size of 8684 for arts events, 4372 for arts activities, 4268 for creative groups, and 2061 for interested non-attendees. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results More education was associated with increased levels of all types of arts engagement. Parental education demonstrated a similar association. Being female, compared to male, was also consistently associated with higher levels of engagement. Attendance at arts events was lower in participants with lower income and social class, poorer health, and those living in less urban areas. However, these factors were not associated with participation in arts activities or creative groups or being an interested non-attendee. Conclusions Overall, we found evidence for a social gradient in attendance at arts events, which was not as pronounced in participation in arts activities or creative groups or interest in arts events. Given the many benefits of engagement in the arts for education, health, and wider welfare, our findings demonstrate the importance of identifying factors to reduce barriers to participation in the arts across all groups in society.

scholarly journals Response Rates and Representativeness: A Benchmark Comparison of the General Social Surveys to the American Community Surveys, 2012-2018

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Response Rate ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Community Surveys ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Auxiliary Data ◽  
Social Surveys ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Us ◽  
The One ◽  
Us Census

The response rate for the General Social Survey (GSS) declined in 2016 and 2018 more than expected. After a slight decline in 2014 to 69.2 percent, the response rate fell abruptly to 61.3 percent in 2016. In 2018, it fell again, but by a more modest amount to 59.5 percent. The reasons for the recent declines are not fully understood, and research with auxiliary data and other surveys may be able to provide additional clarity in the future. In the meantime, I offer this report to promote transparency and reassurance. On the one hand, the GSS is fighting the same non-response headwind that other national surveys confront, and thus there is reason to be concerned. On the other hand, the problem is not so acute that a decline in the demographic representativeness of the GSS is yet apparent. This overall conclusion is based on a comparison of the realized demographic demographic composition of the GSS and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) from 2012 through 2018.

Finding critical trusters: A response pattern model of political trust

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary Wu ◽  
Rima Wilkes
Keyword(s):  
Response Pattern ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Us ◽  
Specific Assessment ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Democracies

How can declining political trust in Western democracies be explained, especially, when it remains stable and high in authoritarian societies? Underlying this question is a debate about whether political trust represents a diffuse orientation toward the political system as a whole or a specific assessment of incumbent performance. This article argues that the solution requires a move away from existing approaches that focus on question content and instead thinking about the pattern of responses. While previous work assumes that individuals display both specific and diffuse trust, we argue that the individual patterning of responses indicates either diffuse or specific trust but not both. We develop a response pattern model and use it to identify three types of individuals – critical trusters (specific trust), compliants (diffuse trust), and cynics (diffuse distrust). Tests of the model with the World Values Survey (WVS) and the US General Social Survey (GSS) show that democracies have a higher proportion of critical trusters than other systems of government and that the proportion of critical trusters has increased over time in the United States. The response pattern model directly connects cross-national and longitudinal empirical evidence to theory about the relationship between democracy and different types of trust.

Nonstandard Employment and Job Satisfaction across Time in China: Evidence from the Chinese General Social Survey (2006–2012)

2020 ◽  
pp. 095001702092636
Author(s):  
Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon ◽  
Can Tang
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Nonstandard Employment ◽  
Chinese General Social Survey ◽  
Ownership Types ◽  
Over Time

This study examines the association of nonstandard employment with job satisfaction over time in China. An analysis is carried out using the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), a large cross-sectional survey that collected data from over 3000 workers across different industries, ownership types and regions in China in 2006, 2008 and 2012. The empirical results show that in 2006, nonstandard employment workers, on average, were less satisfied with their jobs than their counterparts in standard employment, all else being equal. However, these differences in job satisfaction became very small and insignificant in 2008 and 2012. The results from the propensity score matching exercise provide a similar conclusion. These findings suggest that improvements in regulations and employment relations in China have increased job satisfaction for nonstandard employment workers.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Use of Two-Step Gender Identity Measures in the 2018 General Social Survey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danya Lagos ◽  
D'Lane Compton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Gender Nonconforming ◽  
The Us ◽  
And Bisexual ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Bisexual People

In 2018, the General Social Survey asked some respondents for their sex assigned at birth and current gender identity, in addition to the ongoing practice of having survey interviewers code respondent sex. Between 0.44% and 0.93% of the respondents who were surveyed either identified as transgender, identified with a gender that does not conventionally correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth, or identified the sex they were assigned at birth inconsistently with the interviewer’s assessment of respondent sex. These results corroborate previous estimates of the US’ transgender population size. Furthermore, these new questions’ implementations mirror the successful inclusion of other small populations represented in the GSS, such as lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, as well as Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. Data on transgender and gender nonconforming populations can be pooled together over time to assess these populations’ attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and social inequality patterns. We identified some inconsistencies between interviewer-coded sex, self-reported sex, and gender identity. As with the coding of race in the GSS, interviewer-coded assessments can mismatch respondents’ self-reported identification. Our findings underscore the importance of continuing to ask respondents to self-report gender identity separately from sex assigned at birth in the GSS and other surveys.

scholarly journals Who engages in the arts in the United States? A comparison of three types of engagement using data from the General Social Survey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Katherine Bone ◽  
Feifei Bu ◽  
Meg Fluharty ◽  
Elise Paul ◽  
Jill Sonke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gradient ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arts Engagement

Engaging in the arts is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While it is generally accepted that there is a social gradient in arts participation, previous studies of arts engagement in the US have not used comprehensive measures of engagement and often focus on single demographic or socioeconomic predictors of engagement rather than simultaneously testing a range of factors that may be related to one another. Using cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey (GSS) in the US, we examined which demographic, socioeconomic, residential, and health factors were associated with attendance at arts events, participation in arts activities, and membership of creative groups. We combined data from 1993 to 2016 in three analytical samples with a sample size of 8,684 for arts events, 4,372 for arts activities, and 4,268 for creative groups. Data were analysed using logistic regression. More education was associated with increased levels of all types of arts engagement. Parental education demonstrated a similar association. Being female, compared to male, was also consistently associated with higher levels of engagement. Attendance at arts events was lower in participants with lower income and social class, poorer health, and those living in less urban areas. However, these factors were not associated with engagement in arts activities or creative groups. Overall, we found evidence for a social gradient in attendance at arts events, which was not as pronounced in engagement in arts activities or creative groups. Given the many benefits of engagement in the arts for education, health, and wider welfare, our findings demonstrate the importance of identifying factors to reduce barriers to participation in the arts across all groups in society.

scholarly journals Reliability of the Core Items in the General Social Survey: Estimates from the Three-wave Panels, 2006-2014

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Hout ◽  
Orestes P Hastings
Keyword(s):  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Reliability Measures ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Estimates ◽  
And Gender

We used standard and multilevel models to assess the reliability of core items in the General Social Survey panel studies spanning 2006 to 2014. Most of the 293 core items scored well on the measure of reliability: 62 items (21 percent) had reliability measures greater than 0.85; another 71 (24 percent) had reliability measures between 0.70 and 0.85. Objective items, especially facts about demography and religion, were generally more reliable than subjective items. The economic recession of 2007-09, the slow recovery afterward, and the election of Barack Obama in 2008 altered the social context in ways that may look like unreliability of items. For example, unemployment status, hours worked, and weeks worked have lower reliability than most work-related items, reflecting the consequences of the recession on the facts of peoples lives. Items regarding racial and gender discrimination and racial stereotypes scored as particularly unreliable, accounting for most of the 15 items with reliability coefficients less than 0.40. Our results allow scholars to more easily take measurement reliability into consideration in their own research, while also highlighting the limitations of these approaches.

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