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European Sociological Review Advance Access originally published online on June 30, 2007
European Sociological Review 2007 23(4):537-551; doi:10.1093/esr/jcm022
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Globalization, Social Structure, and the Willingness to Help Others: a Multilevel Analysis Across 26 Countries

Ferry Koster

Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)/Henri Polak Institute, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 4, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0)20 525 7140; Website: www.ferrykoster.nl. Email: f.koster{at}uva.nl

This article investigates whether the process of globalization through which countries become increasingly interconnected is related to people's intention to help others in society. The willingness to help others may be lower in open countries because of more porous national boundaries and lower social cohesion. On the other hand, the openness of countries can also strengthen local structures and increase the awareness of mutual interdependence. Whether globalization is negatively or positively related to the willingness to help others is assumed to dependent on the social structure of countries. In this article, hypotheses are tested using individual level data from the European Values Study and country level data from the KOF Index of Globalization, the Eurobarometer, and the International Monetary Fund. The combined data set includes 31,554 individuals living in 26 European countries. The multilevel analyses show that economic and social openness are not related to the intention to help the sick and disabled and that the willingness to help immigrants is positively related to economic and social openness. The positive relationship between openness at the national level and the individual citizen's willingness to help immigrants is explained by the social structure of a country; if people receive more positive information about the behaviour of others, they are more willing to help immigrants.

Manuscript received: May 1, 2006.


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