scholarly journals Trends and Disparities in Subjective Upward Mobility since 1940

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312095113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thor Berger ◽  
Per Engzell

Concerns that prospects for upward mobility are fading are common in popular and scientific discourse. The fact that fewer Americans today surpass their parents’ economic status than in the past has been invoked to explain trends ranging from the recent spike in drug and alcohol poisonings to the growing appeal of right-wing populism. Using General Social Survey data, the authors ask whether people actually feel that their standard of living is falling short of that of previous generations. In contrast to data on income, education, or occupation, a majority still perceive that they have attained a higher standard of living than their parents. At the same time, mobility experiences are becoming increasingly polarized: subjective upward mobility is rising among highly educated, minority, and urban populations and declining among less educated and rural populations.

Author(s):  
Jeffrey Е. Cohen

Antisemitism has long been found on both the political far-right and farleft. The recent rise in antisemitism worldwide raises the question of whether current antisemitism is found more with the far-right or far-left, the former a function of right-wing populism and the latter with what has been termed the new antisemitism. This paper uses data from the 2014 round of the European Social Survey in 20 nations to test for the connection between ideological selfplacement and antisemitic attitudes in mass publics. Analysis finds greater levels of antisemitism with the extreme far-right compared to the far-left, but extreme leftists appear slightly more antisemitic than moderate leftist. Further, there is less antisemitism than anti-Muslim and anti-Roma (Gypsy) attitudes at all positions on the left-right continuum. The conclusion puts the findings into context and suggests directions for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Sharp

I propose a theoretical framework to understand how the religious practice of prayer influences helping. Drawing on work from symbolic interaction and cognitive psychology, I argue that individuals’ concepts of divine others become more cognitively accessible during the act of prayer. Because most people attribute the characteristics of omniscience and the desire for humans to help others to divine others, people are more likely to help known and unknown others the more cognitively accessible divine other concepts are to them. This leads to the prediction that frequency of prayer will be positively and linearly associated with frequency of helping. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), I find support for my argument. Frequency of prayer is positively and linearly associated with the frequency in which individuals engaged in several helpful behaviors toward known and unknown others in the past year, even after accounting for other religious and sociodemographic factors.


Intersections ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-127
Author(s):  
Vera Messing ◽  
Bence Ságvári

In this paper we aim to discuss attitudes towards immigrants in a European context and analyse drivers of anti-immigrant attitudes such as the feeling of control, basic human values, political orientation and preferences related to right-wing populism. Based on data from the European Social Survey, we first describe how attitudes of people in Europe changed throughout a period of almost two decades (between 2002 and 2018). We will show that although attitudes are influenced by a number of demographic and subjective features of individuals, on the macro-level they seem to be surprisingly stable, yet hide significant cross-country differences. Then, we zoom in to the three most significant elements influencing attitudes towards immigrants: the feeling of control, basic human values, and political orientation. Applying a multi-level model we test the validity of three theories about factors informing attitudes towards immigrants—competition theory, locus of control, and the role of basic human values—and include time (pre- and post-2015 refugee-crisis periods) into the analysis. In the discussion we link ESS data to recent research on populism in Europe that categorizes populist parties across the continent, and establish that the degree to which anti-migrant feelings are linked to support for political populism varies significantly across European countries. We show that right-wing populist parties gather and feed that part of the population which is very negative towards migrants and migration in general, and this process is also driven by the significance awarded the value of security vis-à-vis humanitarianism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan-yang Wu ◽  
Yi-tong Yu ◽  
Yi-dan Yao ◽  
Mo-han Su ◽  
Wen-chao Zhang ◽  
...  

There is little literature on the impact of donation on individual wellbeing in China. This study examines individual donations in China to answer the question of whether helping others makes us happier and to provide policy implications for in Chinese context. Based on the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data and using ordered logit and OLS as benchmark models, this study finds that donation can significantly increase individual happiness. After using propensity score matching (PSM) to eliminate the possible impact of self-selection, the above conclusion remains robust. After a sub-sample discussion, it is found that this effect is more pronounced under completely voluntary donation behavior, and is not affected by economic factors, indicating that the happiness effect of donation does not vary significantly depending on the individual’s economic status. This study contributes to the literature on donation behavior by examining the impact of donation behavior on donors’ subjective happiness in China, and further identifies subjective happiness differences, as between voluntary and involuntary donations, thereby providing theoretical and empirical support for the formulation of policies for the development of donation institutions in China.


Author(s):  
Marlene Wind

Doomsdays preachers suggested that Brexit and Trump would mean the end of the liberal world order as we know it and thus the end of the EU. The research presented here suggests the opposite. Not only have Europeans turned their back to populism by voting yes to reforms and pro-EU-parties and governments in different member states over the past months, but Brexit and Trump also seems to have given a complete new momentum to the European project. This chapter demonstrates why Brexit cannot be generalized to the rest of the continent but is the result of a complicated and special British conception of what it means to be a sovereign state in the twenty-first century. Moreover, and paradoxically, surveys show that the greatest fear among Europeans today is not more European integration but right wing populism and European disunion.


Author(s):  
Victoria Larocca ◽  
Stuart Wilson ◽  
Andrea Cavaliere

Research has shown a relationship between parent sport participation and child sport participation. With a sample of 1,064 respondents from the 2010 General Social Survey, this study examined how child sport participation is associated with parent sport participation, household income, parent education level, and parent sex. Results found that respondents with a child aged 5-12 who participated in sport over the past 12 months were more likely to have done so themselves too. (OR = 4.39, 95% CI = 2.44-7.89, p < 0.001). Significant differences (p < 0.001) were additionally found for the respondent’s education, age, and total household income. However, no significant differences were found for sex (p = 0.13). These results suggest that evidence-based interventions targeted at parents who do not participate in sport may increase children’s participation. Further research is encouraged to take a more holistic approach to analyzing childhood sport participation.


Author(s):  
Naz Onel ◽  
Avinandan Mukherjee

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine five different types of eco-sensitive behaviours separately and understand if determinants of these behaviours vary depending on the type of action being performed. Design/methodology/approach – The study investigates factors influencing five different eco-sensitive behaviours by empirically testing the effects of socio-economic status (SES), gender, age and environmental values. Theoretically guided hypotheses and models were formulated and tested with multiple linear regression models by employing a data set from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) 2010 General Social Survey. Findings – Results conclude that different types of behaviour have different predictors. While age differences only explain recycling cans and bottles, gender difference explains buying pesticide-free fruits/vegetables and avoiding environmentally harmful products. Values, on the other hand, predict all five eco-behaviours. Driving less and saving water for environmental reasons were least explained by the examined predictors. Originality/value – These results contribute to untangling the confusing research evidence on the effects of SES, age, gender and environmental values on different environmental behaviours and on the relationship between them by examining each behaviour separately.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102110271
Author(s):  
Torben Lütjen

Right-wing populism and authoritarianism are often thought to be closely linked to each other: conceptually, ideologically, historically. This article challenges that assumption by reinterpreting right-wing populism as an essentially anti-authoritarian movement. Right-wing populism diverges from the clearly authoritarian movements of the past, such as classic conservatism and fascism, in at least two important ways: first, it follows a distinctive epistemology with a different idea what constitutes the truth and who has access to it. Second, populism has a peculiar understanding of the ultimate source of political authority and the function of political leadership. My article shows how right-wing populists pursue a project of self-empowerment and appropriate notions of emancipation and autonomy for their own narrative.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Wray ◽  
Julia Ingenfeld ◽  
Melissa Milkie ◽  
Irene Boeckmann

Parents’ time with children has increased over the past several decades, according to many scholars. Yet, research predominantly focuses on childcare activities, overlooking the majority of time parents spend with children. Using time diaries from the 1986-2015 Canadian General Social Survey, we examine trends in the quantity and distribution of parents’ childcare time and total contact time in the company of children, as well as the behavioral or compositional drivers of these trends. Contact time with children increased sharply since the mid-1980s, by 1 hour per day for fathers and 1.5 hours for mothers. This rise was driven not only by childcare activities but also parents’ time in housework and mothers’ time in leisure with children present. Decomposition analyses indicate that changes in parenting behavior primarily explain these increases in contact time. This study expands knowledge on intensive parenting through a more comprehensive understanding of parents’ daily lives with children.


Author(s):  
Margaret M. Willis ◽  
Juliet B. Schor

As the prevalence of “conscious” consumption has grown, questions have arisen about its relationship to political action. An influential argument holds that political consumption individualizes responsibility for environmental degradation and “crowds out” genuine forms of activism. While European and Canadian empirical research contradicts this perspective, finding that conscious consumption and political engagement are positively connected, no studies of this relationship have been conducted for the United States. This article presents ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models for two datasets, the 2004 General Social Survey and a detailed survey of approximately 2,200 conscious consumers conducted by the authors, to assess the nature of the relationship between conscious consumption and political activism. The authors find that measures of conscious consumption are significantly and positively related to political action, even when controlling for political involvement in the past. The results suggest that greater levels of political consumption are positively related to a range of political actions.


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