Associations Between Higher-Order Values Vary with Age, Education, and Income

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maksim Rudnev

A theory of basic human values relies on the similarity of value structures across countries. It has been well established that the quasi-circumplex value structure as a whole is indeed universal. However, less attention has been paid to the associations between specific values. This study investigated associations between four higher-order values across age, education, and income groups. We analyzed the data from national representative samples collected in 29 countries as part of the fourth round of the European Social Survey with a series of multilevel regressions. Younger age, higher levels of education and income coincided with higher independence of the four adjacent higher-order values, whereas among older, less educated, and less wealthy groups, values tended to merge into a single dimension of Social versus Person Focus. These differences were slightly weaker in more economically developed countries. The group differences in value associations may follow from corresponding differences in the degree of societal and individual empowerment, cognitive abilities, and socialization experiences. Accounting for the individual differences in relations between values may bring deeper understanding and higher predictive power to the studies of links between values and various behaviors or attitudes. , value structure, value interactions, European Social Survey

2021 ◽  
pp. 002071522110413
Author(s):  
Tom VanHeuvelen ◽  
Jane S VanHeuvelen

How does engagement in multiple health behaviors consolidate into health promoting health lifestyles, and how does economic development provide a broadly shared living condition to enable participation in health promoting health lifestyles? To answer these questions, we harmonize information from the 2011 International Social Survey Programme and the 2014 European Social Survey to examine patterns of health lifestyles and subsequent associations with self-rated health in representative samples of 52 country-years nested in 35 countries, with repeated observations from 17 countries. We find individuals engage more frequently in health promoting behaviors in countries with higher levels of economic development. Moreover, we find a tighter connection between health lifestyles and health in countries with higher levels of economic development. Critically, we move health lifestyles research forward by testing the consequences of within country changes in economic development, finding that growth in economic development increases the engagement of health promoting health behaviors. Policy and theoretical implications are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 148 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Glatz ◽  
Anja Eder

Abstract This paper offers elaborate analyses regarding the effects of social- as well as institutional trust as parts of social capital on subjective well-being (SWB) by using data from the European Social Survey, including 36 countries and eight time-points between 2002 and 2016. We analyze (1) The development of trust and SWB on the aggregate level; (2) The effect of trust on SWB on the individual cross-sectional level; and (3) The longitudinal and cross-sectional effect of trust on SWB on the aggregate level while considering control variables based on previous research. We observe a weak positive trend regarding social trust as well as SWB over time, but no significant change in institutional trust. However, trends are far from homogeneous across countries. In accordance to previous studies, we find a positive effect of social trust on SWB. This effect holds on the individual cross-sectional level for every participating country, but also on the longitudinal level. In view of institutional trust, we see a positive effect on SWB on the individual and aggregate cross-sectional level, but not over time. Thus, this study particularly sheds new light on this relation, indicating that it´s cross-sectional relation is due to confounding variables. Moreover, we observe no relation between economic growth and SWB after controlling for unemployment, but a positive effect of decreasing unemployment and inflation on SWB. Our data suggests that establishing an environment with high social trust across Europe would be rewarded with a happy society.


2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 766-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Bowler

A large body of aggregate-level work shows that government policies do indeed respond to citizen preferences. But whether citizens recognize that government is responsive is another question entirely. Indeed, a prior question is whether or not citizens value responsiveness in the way that academic research assumes they should in the first place. Using comparative data from the European Social Survey, this article examines how citizens see government responsiveness. We show that several key assumptions of the aggregate-level literature are met at the individual level. But we also present results that show that attitudes toward representation and responsiveness are colored, sometimes in quite surprising ways, by winner–loser effects. In a finding that stands in some contrast to the normative literature on the topic, we show that these sorts of short-term attitudes help shape preferences for models of representation. In particular, we show that the distinction between delegates and trustees is a conceptual distinction that has limits in helping us to understand citizen preferences for representation.


Author(s):  
M. Bondarenko ◽  
S. Babenko ◽  
O. Borovskiy

The present article highlights the results of social cohesion study fulfilled on datasets collected during the sixth wave of the European Social Survey. The conducted study involved the explanation of the importance of social cohesion as a social phenomenon, caused by a paradigmatic shift of approaches to measuring the quality of life of societies. This involved the consideration of social cohesion as an important factor to measure the "social quality" of life. For this purpose, a technique implemented by Bertelsmann Stiftung was used, which was applied to available sixth wave of European Social Survey data, the latter, which included Ukraine, and further certified through the analysis of other additional sources. The study allowed to make a number of substantive conclusions about the level of social cohesion in Ukraine comparing to European countries and other countries of the world. Some recommendations for further research on social cohesion also have been given. The said phenomenon is important because it once can cover a wide range of socially important issues, being simultaneously at both the individual and the collective (macro) level of consciousness. The research of social cohesion highlights "problematic social spheres", so-called weak points of social relations, and conclusions provide knowledge about the direction, to which the efforts to improve the life of the society should be primarily directed.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Stephany

Trust explains the functioning of markets, institutions or society as a whole. It is a key element in almost every commercial transaction over time and might be one of the main explanations of economic success and development. In Europe, the determinants of (generalized) trust have been investigated in the past. Most scholars have focused on aggregate (national) levels of trust. However, it can be assumed that driving forces, which foster or diminish trust, act at a sub-national level. Regional clusters remain undetected. With the use of the European Social Survey 6 and modern spatial diagnostics, this work examines the individual and regional determinants of trust in 88 European NUTS1 regions in 26 countries. There are two main findings. First, wealth, linguistic fragmentation, and religious ideologies shape trust on a regional level, education, income, and membership in associations foster trust on an individual level. Secondly, the study unravels regional dispersions in different types of "trust regimes" in Europe. Regional clusters of generalized trust are confirmed by spatial diagnostics. The "regionality" of trust could be of importance for future targeted policy making.


Intersections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Ságvári ◽  
Vera Messing ◽  
Dávid Simon

Our paper examines the validity of the rotating questionnaire block about perceptions about and attitudes towards democracy included in the sixth round of the European Social Survey (ESS). The preliminary assumptions that inspired our analysis were that respondents’ understanding of the questions formulated in such an internationally comparative survey may be challenged due to diverging theoretical constructions and narratives that feed historically developed notions of ‘democracy.’ Moreover, even within the same country people with a different socioeconomic, ethnic, and educational background may have different perceptions about the same questionnaire ‘items.’ We applied a multi-method approach to analyze the above metho-dological puzzle: a complex statistical analysis of the Hungarian ESS data served to help examine the consistency of answers to individual items and the entirety of the questionnaire block, while supplementary focus group research helped us apprehend the variety of interpretations of and perceptions about the individual items, as well as problems with understanding various terms included in the questions that assessed attitudes towards democracy. Our findings support the initial hypothesis: respondents had obvious difficulties understanding some of the items designed to assess attitudes towards democracy, while many others had differing interpretations. We conclude that even though the ESS is one of the most refined, well-prepared and validated comparative surveys in Europe, the related data cannot be analyzed without careful consideration of what the individual questions might mean in different contexts.


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Erlinghagen

The paper investigates in the question if and how the subjective well-being (SWB) of German emigrants, German non-migrants, and German remigrants differ. Based on regression analyses of data from the European Social Survey (ESS) the analyses focus on life satisfaction and happiness as main indicators of SWB. It turns out that German emigrants show increased SWB compared to German non-migrants or remigrants. However, these findings cannot be explained by differences in the socio-economic or socio-demographic group structure. In fact, the increased SWB of emigrants is much more an effect of psychosocial differences and differences in the individual evaluation of household income.


Author(s):  
Héctor Cebolla-Boado

In the European context, Spain is a late modernizer, which experienced a delayed educational expansion. However, after 1970, and especially after the restoration of democracy in 1978, the Spanish education system completed its expansion and modernized significantly, converging with its neighbours on most outcomes related to the quality of education. Notwithstanding remarkable levels of stability of institutional design and framework policies, it is widely believed that education in Spain is subject to constant political reforms. This is partly explained by the frequent use of education in political and electoral debates, and, particularly, by the overrepresentation in public debates of a limited repertoire of normative and organizational aspects of educational policies. While the current education system in Spain has achieved a high level of quality combined with low levels of educational inequality by social background when compared with other developed countries, there are secular problems that need to be addressed, particularly the reform of teacher selection, training programmes, and careers; modernization of school curricula; adaptation of pedagogical innovations; rationalization of retakes; and diversification of tracks to offer less successful students an alternative and prevent early dropout. This chapter describes this transformation and problematizes key educational reforms in Spain, focusing on the democratic period, using different international datasets including PISA (OECD, several years), PIACC (OECD 2016), TIMSS, and PIRLS (IEA, several years), the European Social Survey as well as several national sources of data including the Spanish General Social Survey (CIS 2013) and the Labour Force Survey (several years).


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 471-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Shore

Although it is no longer a symbol of socially degenerate behavior in many societies, single motherhood remains associated with numerous risks and disadvantages. In addition to their disadvantages in the labor market and their greater risk of poverty, single mothers also tend to be less politically active. This article explores the patterns of single mothers’ electoral participation across 25 European countries. In addition to the individual-level characteristics that shape the likelihood of taking part in an election, public policies can also do a great deal to encourage political involvement. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey combined with national family and labor market policies, I examine the ways in which policies aiming to reconcile the responsibilities at work and home can draw single mothers into political engagement. I find that early childhood expenditures and cash benefits to families are positively related to single mothers’ political participation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 646-646
Author(s):  
Liat Ayalon

Abstract Ageism is defined as stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination towards people of any age. Ageism can be both positive and negative. In order for an individual to report exposure to ageism, several steps should occur: the individual has to notice the events, interpret them as ageist and report exposure to ageism. Any of these steps may go awry along the way. This presentation uses data from the European Social Survey and the Health and Retirement Study to illustrate the importance of item placement, item phrasing and respondent’s mood in responding to items concerning perceived exposure to ageism. A strong priming effect demonstrated a gap between reports of perceived exposure within the ageism module (33.7%) vs. reports within the neutral context (1.1%). A cross-lagged analyses revealed that one’s depressive symptoms are predictive of perceived exposure to ageism and not the other way around. Findings illustrate the importance of the context effect.


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