European Sociological Review - Advance Access

Work and Well-being in a Comparative Perspective--The Role of Family Policy

Boye, K. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:41:45 PDT

The present study investigates whether associations between well-being and paid work and housework, respectively, differ between European family policy models, and whether any such differences can be attributed to differences in the experience of work–family conflict. Analysing data on mothers and fathers in 18 European countries, the study finds that the traditional family policy model shows the most positive association between women’s well-being and paid working hours, although this association is concealed by work–family conflict. Possibly, the selection into long paid working hours of women with rewarding jobs is greater here than elsewhere. Women’s housework hours are also most positively associated with well-being in the traditional model, although well-being decreases when housework hours become too long. In the market-oriented model, women’s paid working hours and housework hours are instead associated with decreasing well-being, the former association appearing to be caused by work–family conflict. The strongest positive association between men’s paid working hours and well-being is found in the market-oriented model, but again, control for work–family conflict reveals positive associations in this and other models. Hence, among both mothers and fathers, work–family conflict appears to be one important reason why paid working hours are not more clearly associated with high levels of well-being.

Foreign Language Proficiency of Intra-European Migrants: A Multilevel Analysis

Braun, M. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:05:11 PDT

Previous studies on the determinants of migrants’ foreign language proficiency converge in attributing importance to the same set of variables. These variables can be integrated in a rational choice framework, and it is likely that processes are at work which apply to different contexts. This study aims to make three contributions to the existing literature. First, it provides a further test of the generality of findings using survey data on intra-European adult migrants as a specific context. Intra-European migrants differ in many respects from hitherto analysed migrant groups. High-skilled labour, study, and ‘quality-of-life’ migration are well represented alongside low-skilled labour migration. Second, several variables are added which are not available in the official data on which analyses are usually based. These include retrospective information on migrants’ previous sojourns abroad, migration motives, language proficiency at the time of migration, and the number of friends from their own and other ethnicities. Third, the study analyses the differential impact of initial language proficiency as well as structural and social integration for groups that differ with regard to a group-specific likelihood of familiarity with the foreign language.

Social Origins and Labour Market Success--Stability and Change over Norwegian Birth Cohorts 1950-1969

Mastekaasa, A. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:24:54 PDT

This article examines to what extent social origins have direct impact on people’s earnings, over and above what is mediated by their educational attainment, and whether such effects have changed over time. Population data on Norwegian birth cohorts from 1950 to 1969 are employed. Parents’ level of education has relatively weak negative effects on earnings. Parents’ earnings have a stronger and positive effect, which is either stable or slightly increasing over the cohorts. Hypotheses based on modernization theory or on theories of a transition to school-mediated social origin effects are rejected. Further results indicate that choice of field of education does not mediate social origin effects. The direct social origin effects are relatively small for those employed in large organizations and in the public sector; along with other indirect evidence this provides some indication that the direct social origin effects reflect non-meritocratic processes.

Changes in Intergenerational Mobility and Educational Inequality in Estonia: Comparative Analysis of Cohorts Born between 1930 and 1974

Saar, E. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:05:14 PDT

We analyse intergenerational social mobility in Estonia comparing four cohorts born between 1930 and 1974. The article addresses three main research questions. First, how have absolute mobility rates changed in Estonia? Second, what have been the trends in social fluidity across birth cohorts? Third, what is the role of education in explaining changes across cohorts? Separate analyses are carried out for men and women. Analysis is based on data from the Estonian Social Survey, 2004–2005, which gathered retrospective information about the work histories of respondents as well as their social origins. We find that social fluidity certainly varies across cohorts but not in any way that could be characterized as a trend towards greater or lesser inequality. Comparisons of cohorts born in the 1930s and in the 1940s showed that social fluidity increased for both sexes. The increase continued for the cohort born in the 1950s but only for women belonging to that cohort. For men the association between origin and destination started to increase in the cohort born in the 1950s. For women that trend was noticeable for the youngest (1974) cohort. Our conclusion is that changes in social fluidity, across cohorts in Estonia, have been driven by changes in educational inequality.

Yossi Shavit, Richard Arum, and Adam Gamoran (Eds.): Stratification in Higher Education. A Comparative Study

Relikowski, I. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:05:10 PDT

Comparing Poverty Indicators in an Enlarged European Union

Whelan, C. T., Maitre, B. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:05:09 PDT

In this article, we explore the extent to which a consideration of welfare regime and socioeconomic differences in poverty levels and patterns can assist us in making an informed assessment of alternative poverty indicators. Poverty in the EU is normally defined in terms of income thresholds at the level of each member state. However, with the enlargement of the EU, such measures have come in for increasing criticism. One set of reservation relates to the limitations imposed by an entirely national frame of reference. An alternative critique focuses on the fact that low income is an unreliable indicator of poverty. In this article, we seek to explore the strength of both arguments by comparing the outcomes associated with ‘at risk of poverty’ and consistent poverty at both national and EU levels. Developing an appropriate assessment of poverty levels in the enlarged EU, particularly in periods of rapid change, is likely to require that we make use of a number of indicators none of which capture the full complexity of cross-national poverty outcomes. However, our analysis suggests that if a choice is to be made between the available indicators, the ‘mixed consistent poverty’ indicator developed in this study is best suited to achieving the stated EU objective of assessing the scale of exclusion from minimally acceptable standards of living in individual countries while also measuring the extent to which the whole population of Europe is sharing in the benefits of high average prosperity.

Analysing Social Inequality: A Critique of Two Recent Contributions from Economics and Epidemiology

Goldthorpe, J. H. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:19:18 PDT

Two recent studies focusing on issues of social inequality are reviewed, one the work largely of economists, the other of epidemiologists. In both cases, the conceptualization and in turn the analysis of social inequality appear inadequate. In the case of the economists, concerned with whether, under New Labour, Britain has become a more equal society, attention is concentrated on changes in income distributions to the neglect of the distinction between the attributional and the relational aspects of inequality. The analyses presented reveal serious gaps and a lack of integration that could have been avoided through their grounding in some concept of class stratification. In the case of the epidemiologists, concerned to show a contextual effect of social inequality on population health and other outcomes, stratification is treated as one-dimensional, with no distinction being recognized between class and status. It is in fact status rather than the material inequalities associated with class that are seen as crucial in mediating the supposed contextual effect. But the inferences that are made from the available data on income distributions to inequalities of status and their consequences are often of a doubtful kind.

Minority Dropout in Higher Education: A Comparison of the United States and Norway using Competing Risk Event History Analysis

Reisel, L., Brekke, I. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:11:04 PDT

The objective of this article is to compare college persistence patterns among minority and majority students in universities and colleges in Norway with that of the United States. Despite differences in the educational systems and economic regimes, both countries face the common challenge of ensuring educational equity, especially among students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and minority students. Using competing risk event history analysis, this article examines nationally representative samples of students to assess the relative year-to-year risk of dropping out from higher education among minority and majority students. We found that while the US higher education system tends to exacerbate initial socioeconomic inequalities between minority and majority students, there is no difference in the dropout risk among minority and majority students in Norway. Moreover, at the BA level, we found that minority students graduate at significantly lower rates than majority students in the United States, even when we control for dropping out. Again, there is no such difference in Norway. This indicates that even though minority students in Norway are also disproportionately from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, they are encountering fewer obstacles in higher education than minority students in the United States.

Market versus Meritocracy: Hungary as a Critical Case

Bukodi, E., Goldthorpe, J. H. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:36:32 PDT

We review two conflicting arguments concerning meritocracy in modern societies. One argument, ‘meritocracy as functional imperative’ (MFI), derives from the American liberal tradition and sees the development of meritocracy, and especially of education-based meritocracy, as essential to the technological and economic dynamism of such societies. The other argument, ‘market versus meritocracy’ (MVM), derives from the European liberal tradition and sees meritocracy of any kind as in various respects incompatible with the principles of a free-market economy and liberal democracy. The transition that has occurred in several of the societies of the former Soviet bloc from state socialism, under which education-based meritocracy was relatively highly developed, to liberal capitalism provides a ‘natural experiment’ that allows for the empirical testing of the two arguments. We focus on changes in the relations between social class origins, educational attainment, and class destinations in the case of Hungary, for which extensive and high-quality survey data are available. In general, our findings do not support expectations under the MFI argument but are consistent with expectations under the MVM argument.

On The Relation Between Fertility, Natality, and Nuptiality

Prskawetz, A., Mamolo, M., Engelhardt, H. — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:54:51 PDT

Recent studies of fertility in Europe indicate a changing cross-country correlation between total fertility and fertility-related behaviour. Fertility now tends to be lowest in countries that are traditional, catholic, and family-oriented, while it is highest in countries with high divorce rates, high rates of cohabitation, and high levels of extra-marital births. In this article we provide support to the argument that the change in the cross-country correlation between fertility and fertility-related behaviour may indicate a change in social context of this fertility-related behaviour that has helped to uncover cross-country differences in social norms, culture, and institutional settings. We apply pooled time series analysis and show that time and country heterogeneity in the association between fertility and fertility-related behaviour can explain the change in the cross-country correlation. Our results also indicate that further postponement of marriage and motherhood leads to less pronounced declines in fertility.

The Explosive Rise of a Political Party: The Logic of 'Sudden Convergence'

Sgourev, S. V. — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:54:50 PDT

What is it that makes events difficult to predict? Starting with the assumption that unpredictability is commensurate with complexity, the article examines a highly complex process of discontinuous change, defined as ‘sudden convergence’—spontaneous, momentary correlation between components or preferences that were heretofore unrelated. This process is illustrated through the rise of ‘Ataka’—a nationalist–populist party in Bulgaria, which attained 9 per cent of the parliamentary vote shortly after its creation. Making use of multiple data sources, the analysis finds a highly heterogeneous support base of ‘Ataka’, with diverse protest rationales abruptly realigned in the same political corner in seemingly haphazard manner and with little indication for strategic oversight. A complex amalgam of interests is forged under substantial ambiguity. The analysis contributes to understanding a general problem—how individual preferences that are not supposed to be correlated become suddenly tied together, giving rise to events that severely strain our predictive capabilities, such as mass protest or economic crises.

Overstating Value Change: Question Ordering in the Postmaterial Values Index

Tranter, B., Western, M. — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:02:42 PDT

In much of his research on intergenerational value change, Inglehart uses a four-item index to calculate levels of postmaterial and material value orientations. Latter waves of the World Values Surveys administer a 12-item values index in which the original four-item index is embedded. In some of his research, Inglehart compares values estimated from stand-alone and embedded indices. Using a split sample design, we administered two versions of the longer values index to national probability samples of Australian adults and detected question-ordering effects. Proportions of postmaterialists relative to materialists were inflated when the four-item index was embedded in the longer values index. Comparing estimates of postmaterial values from stand-alone indices with indices embedded in the longer values measure is an unreliable method of assessing change in value orientations, as it overestimates the magnitude of value change over time.

Ethnicity Differences in the Completion Rates of Upper Secondary Education: How Do the Effects of Gender and Social Background Variables Interplay?

Storen, L. A., Helland, H. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:35:27 PDT

This article compares completion rates in Norwegian upper secondary education among ethnic minority groups and the ethnic majority. We examine differences by nationality background among the immigrant groups, and between first- and second-generation immigrants, and how the effects of social origin vary between ethnic majority and minority, and between boys and girls. The findings indicate that parents’ education level is of less significance for students with a non-Western background than for the ethnic majority. The ethnic majority students benefit more from having parents with high education, but the immigrants seem to lose less from having low-educated parents. There are large gender differences in favour of girls. Among students with a non-Western background, the education level of the mother is of particular significance for girls, as well as the mother and father having employment. Among the minority groups, students with Bosnian, Vietnamese and Sri Lankan background are doing particularly well.

The Legitimacy of Book Critics in the Age of the Internet and Omnivorousness: Expert Critics, Internet Critics and Peer Critics in Flanders and the Netherlands

Verboord, M. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:04:21 PDT

The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of how cultural consumers—in this era of increasing Internet usage and more omnivorous cultural taste patterns—use and rate different types of cultural mediators in informing themselves on cultural matters. We focus on how book readers in the Netherlands and Flanders consult critics of varying degrees of institutionalization (experts, Internet reviewers and peers). This research contributes to the overarching question of whether systems of value attribution are becoming less hierarchical in Western societies. The findings suggest that Internet-related information-retrieval practices have a limited effect on the perceived legitimacy of critics. Omnivorous taste patterns do lead to less belief in expert critics, but only if they concern patterns within one genre—the specific domain of book reading. Omnivorousness that implies combining several genres and topics is associated with higher ratings of all types of critics. Therefore, having broader informational needs and broader general taste repertoires leads to the inclusion of critics coming from outside the traditional literary institutions, but, at the same time, does not lead to the exclusion of expert critics.

Cultural Participation Between the Ages of 14 and 24: Intergenerational Transmission or Cultural Mobility?

Nagel, I. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:38:43 PDT

By contrasting between models of cultural reproduction and cultural mobility, this article aims to offer more insight into the causes of changes in cultural participation due to family influence and developments in the educational career. Longitudinal data were used on 2547 adolescents who took part in a classroom survey at age 14–16, and who were since then interviewed two to five times, on average every 2 years. Parents’ cultural participation was found to be more important than education and remained important in the period from adolescence to young adulthood. Although less important than the family influences, education is associated with large differences in cultural participation. These differences are largely additional to the differences according to parents’ cultural participation. Less than half of the differences according to educational level actually emerge during the educational career. The other differences already exist in adolescence, before the educational career is completed. The effects of parents’ cultural participation and education operate independently, except for one educational category—gymnasium students in whom the effect of parents’ cultural participation is stronger than for others. It is concluded that processes of cultural reproduction and cultural mobility both play a role in cultural participation.

Conflict and Housework: Does Country Context Matter?

Ruppanner, L. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:43:43 PDT

In this article, I analyse housework conflict cross-nationally using a unique multi-level data set that pairs the 2004 European Social Survey data for respondents in 25 nations with societal measures of gender equality. At the individual-level, I test two theoretical approaches to subjective housework conflict: the distributive justice and relative resources perspectives. The results support both of these theories for men and women. At the country-level, I test the relationship between housework conflict and two country-level measures: societal gender equality and rates of full-time female labor force participation. For men and women in countries with high rates of full-time female labour force participation, the relationship between housework conflict and gender equality is negative. For men and women in countries with limited access to the labour force, the relationship between housework conflict and gender equality is positive. These results suggest a dynamic relationship between country context and individual negotiations over housework.

Country Differences in the Effects of Divorce on Well-Being: The Role of Norms, Support, and Selectivity

Kalmijn, M. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:41:56 PDT

Little is known about if and how the effect of divorce on well-being varies across societal contexts. This article uses multilevel models for 38 developed countries to test three hypotheses about societal differences. Data are used from the European and World Values Studies. Results show that, in most countries, the divorced have a lower level of well-being than the married, but the magnitude of this difference varies significantly across countries, even when compositional factors are taken into account. The results show that the effect of divorce is weaker in countries where the family is strong, in line with notions of support. The effect of divorce also appears to be weaker when divorce is more common, which points to the role of declining selectivity as divorce rates go up. Mixed evidence was found for the role of norms. The divorce effect is stronger in countries that have stronger norms against divorce, but this was only found for religious persons. Together, these three factors explain more than half of the variance in the divorce effect. Outlier analyses further indicate that the estimates of cross-level interaction effects are sensitive to specific countries that are in the sample.

Labour Conflicts: A Cross-national Analysis of Economic and Institutional Determinants, 1971-2002

Brandl, B., Traxler, F. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:46:52 PDT

Research in labour conflicts crosscuts disciplines. Economists assign the incidence of labour conflicts to the economic development. The institutionalist camp is divided upon whether the power of organized labour or the industrial relations system is the main determinant of conflicts. All these approaches have run into difficulties when it comes to explaining the conflict patterns since 1970. Although empirical studies have combined economic and institutional explanations, important problems remain: A conceptual framework which links economic to institutional factors is lacking; the focus on labour power ignores the relational character of power; endogeneity problems are neglected; quantitative studies covering a larger number of institutional variables are merely cross-sectional, whereas TSCS analyses examine only a few of them. This paper tries to overcome these shortcomings. Its theoretical approach interprets labour conflicts as a problem of union choice which is embedded in a specific economic and institutional context. The hypotheses on these contextual factors are tested, using time-series data for 19 countries. The findings show that the trend towards social peace primarily follows from changes in the economic context, along with a weakening of the unions relative to employers. Cross-national differences in the incidence of conflicts persist mainly due to ‘sticky’ corporatist institutions.

Stratification and Mortality--A Comparison of Education, Class, Status, and Income

Torssander, J., Erikson, R. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:20:08 PDT

In many analyses of social inequality in health, different dimensions of social stratification have been used more or less interchangeably as measures of the individual's general social standing. This procedure, however, has been questioned in previous studies, most of them comparing education, class, and/or income. In this article, the importance of education and income as well as two aspects of occupation—class and status—is examined. The results are based on register data and refer to all Swedish employees in the age range 35–59 years. There are clear gradients in total death risk for all socioeconomic factors except income from work among women. The size of the independent effects of education, class, status, and income differ between men and women. For both sexes, there are clear net associations between education and mortality. Class and income show independent effects on mortality only for men and status shows an independent effect only for women. While different stratification dimensions—education, social class, income, status—all can be used to show a ‘social gradient’ with mortality, each of them seems to have a specific effect in addition to the general effect related to the stratification of society for either men or women.

Educational Expansion and Its Consequences for Vertical and Horizontal Inequalities in Access to Higher Education in West Germany

Reimer, D., Pollak, R. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:58:03 PDT

For scholars of social stratification one of the key questions regarding educational expansion is whether it diminishes or magnifies existing inequalities in educational attainment. The effect of expansion on educational inequality in tertiary education is of particular importance, as tertiary education has become increasingly relevant for labour market prospects and life course opportunities. Our article studies the access to tertiary education of students with different social origins in light of educational expansion in Germany. First, we examine inequalities in access to four vertical alternatives of postsecondary education by means of multinomial regression with national data from four school-leaver surveys from 1983, 1990, 1994, and 1999. Second, for those students who enrol at a tertiary institution, effects of social origin on horizontal choices of fields of study are analysed. Results show that unequal opportunities to access postsecondary and tertiary institutions remain constant at a high level. Likewise, social background effects have not changed over time for the choice of field of study. Thus, students from different social backgrounds did not change their educational strategies irrespective of the ongoing expansion of secondary and tertiary education.

Curricular Choice: A Test of a Rational Choice Model of Education

Gabay-Egozi, L., Shavit, Y., Yaish, M. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:18:36 PDT

Rational choice theories of education view student's educational decision as a sequence of binary choices between options that entail long-term utility and options that reduce short-term risk of failure. One of the best articulated models of educational choice asserts that choice between alternative options is affected by students’ utility considerations, their expectations regarding the odds of success or failure in alternative educational options, and their motivation to avoid downward social mobility. We evaluated these propositions using data on students’ curricular choices in Tel Aviv-Jaffa high schools. We found that educational choice was affected by subjective utility and failure expectations, but not by class maintenance motivations. Just as important, and contrary to the model's main assertion, educational inequality between social strata was not mediated by any of these choice mechanisms. Finally, and importantly, about a fifth of the students in Tel Aviv-Jaffa did not choose between long-term utility and short-term risks, but combined the two. These students, the hedgers, combined the riskier scientific subjects that are expected to yield long-term utility with social sciences and the humanities that reduce the risk of failure in the short term, but are not expected to yield large long-term utilities. The hedgers, moreover, were shown to be disproportionately female and drawn from disadvantaged social strata. These results suggest that educational systems that allow multiple rather than alternative choices may enhance the attainment of working-class youth because they enable them to opt for long term utility while providing a safety-net in the form of additional safer subjects.

Bad Start: Is There a Way Up? Gender Differences in the Effect of Initial Occupation on Early Career Mobility in Britain

Bukodi, E., Dex, S. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:19:23 PDT

This article aims to examine gender and cohort differences in life-course occupational mobility in Britain and in particular the strength of the effects of career entry on subsequent upward or downward mobility. Does a ‘bad start’ in working life typically result in being trapped in the bottom tier of the occupational hierarchy or can it represent a stepping-stone towards more rewarding positions? Are there any gender differences in the effects of low entry occupations on subsequent careers? If so, are these differences stable or changing over time? Using large-scale data from the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Study, we investigate individuals’ occupational careers between the ages of 16 and 34 using an occupational scale based on the hourly average earnings of full-time workers. Although women's and men's career patterns in Britain have become more similar over time, women face the greatest and growing hindrance to career advancement from low level entry jobs. Entering at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy is more likely to represent a trap for women, while for men it is rather a stepping-stone to more favourable positions.

Self-Concern, Self-transcendence, and Well-Being

Meulemann, H. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:19:22 PDT

Well-being depends on self-concern and self-transcendence on the person level for which corresponding processes on the country level can be identified. On the person level, self-concern is geared to success; self-transcendence is geared either to other people or to a transcendent reality and manifests itself in altruism as well as in religiosity. On the level of countries, success manifests itself in economic and democratic development, altruism in advances of the civil society, and religiosity—negatively designated secularization—in religious traditions and means of religious practices. On the level of persons and of countries, two questions are examined: Does self-transcendence increase well-being once self-concern is controlled for? And if so, which of the two directions of self-transcendence, other people or another world, has the stronger impact? Dependent variables are life-satisfaction and happiness as measured in the European Social Survey 2002 and 2004 with altogether 48 country x time samples of 88,040 respondents. Intercept models of multi-level regressions are applied. On the person level, success has a strong, altruism a weak, and religiosity a marginal impact on well-being. On the country level, economic and democratic development affect mean well-being, but advances of the civil society and secularization do not.

Patrick McGovern, Stephen Hill, Colin Mills, and Michael White: Market, Class, and Employment

Kalleberg, A. L. — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:46:12 PDT

Jacqueline Scott, Shirley Dex, and Heather Joshi (Eds.): Women and Employment. Changing Lives and New Challenges

Kumlin, J. — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:54:21 PDT

The Relation Between Market Forces and Employee Motivation: Consequences of the Introduction of Market Forces in the Dutch Childcare Sector

Plantinga, M., Plantenga, J., Siegers, J. — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:54:20 PDT

The Dutch childcare sector has undergone a transition from a welfare sector into a market sector. The final step in this transition process was taken with the introduction of a new Dutch Childcare Act on 1 January 2005. In discussions about the introduction of market forces, the possible effects on employees are usually not taken into consideration. This is remarkable given that it is generally assumed that employee motivation in the public sector differs from employee motivation in the private sector. This article focuses on the consequences of the introduction of market forces in the Dutch childcare sector for the motivation of childminders. The sample consists of 477 childminders working for 30 different Dutch childcare providers. The results show that the extent to which childcare providers are confronted with market forces is neither related to the employees’ governance nor to the intrinsic motivation of childminders.

Change in Social Selection to Upper Secondary School--Primary and Secondary Effects in Sweden

Erikson, R., Rudolphi, F. — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:04:15 PDT

Inequality of educational opportunity (IEO) depends on two separate mechanisms: children from advantaged social backgrounds perform better at school—primary effects—and tend more than others to choose to continue in education—secondary effects. IEO in the transition from compulsory to academic upper secondary education has earlier been shown to have decreased in Sweden since the middle of the 20th century. We investigate whether this change can be accounted for by changing primary or secondary effects, or perhaps by both. The analysis is based on longitudinal data for six cohorts of children, born from 1948 to 1982. Primary and secondary effects are separated both by grade point averages and cognitive test results. The estimation of the effects is based on the comparison of actual and counterfactual transitions among children from different social classes. Results show that the decrease in IEO overall seems to be related to corresponding changes in the primary and secondary effects. Secondary effects are greater when the separation is based on cognitive ability tests rather than grades and we end by discussing the consequences of this observation for the separation of primary and secondary effects.

Uncertainties in Female Employment Careers and the Postponement of Parenthood in Germany

Kreyenfeld, M. — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:34:52 PDT

This article investigates whether uncertainties in female employment careers result in a postponement of family formation. Data for this analysis come from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which provides longitudinal information on economic uncertainty and fertility for the period 1984–2006. We employ objective measures of uncertainty (unemployment) as well as subjective measures (whether the respondent is worried about her economic situation, whether she is worried about the security of her job). We find little evidence that uncertainties in female employment careers generally lead to a postponement of parenthood. Hence, the relationship between economic uncertainty and first birth varies by level of education. While more highly educated women postpone parenthood when subject to employment uncertainties, those with low levels of education often respond to these situations by becoming mothers.

Gender Differences in Intragenerational Mobility: The Case of Estonia

Titma, M., Roots, A., Soidla, I. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:50:35 PDT

The collapse of the socialist system, designed to be as an alternative to a market-based system, created a natural historical experiment. The countries engaged in this experiment devised various ways to introduce and develop a market-based society. In a previous article [Titma and Roots (2006): European Societies 8, 493–526], we examined intragenerational mobility in the first stage of the transition (1991–1997) using cross-national data on five post-Soviet countries obtained from the ‘Paths of a Generation’ (PG) project. In this article, we investigate patterns of intragenerational mobility and factors facilitating it in the second period of the transition (1998–2004). We focus especially on gender as an important factor in intragenerational mobility. We expected that the extent of mobility would decline as the labour market becomes more institutionally regulated. Surprisingly, we find that intragenerational mobility in Estonia is even higher in the second period of transition than in the first period. While men were advantaged relative to women in the first period of the transition, we find that women were more successful than men in gaining positions in the upper strata and in white-collar positions in the second stage of the transition.

School Choice, Universal Vouchers and Native Flight from Local Schools

Rangvid, B. S. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:50:35 PDT

Using data from Copenhagen school registers and other sources, I test the hypothesis that Danes are more likely to opt out of their local public school if it has a large concentration of immigrant pupils. The results suggest that, when a rich set of covariates at student, school, and neighbourhood levels is controlled for, up to an immigrant concentration of about 35 per cent in the local school, opting out decisions of Danes are not affected. But, Danes are far more likely to opt out as soon as the concentration exceeds 35 per cent. However, only the 20 per cent of the immigrant population who speak Danish at home respond to higher immigrant concentrations by opting out. These results lend support to the native-flight-from-immigrants hypothesis and suggest that ethnic segregation across schools is increased by Danes’ and immigrants’ differing behaviour.

Public versus Private: The Conditional Effect of State Policy and Institutional Trust on Mass Opinion

Jakobsen, T. G. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:50:34 PDT

Is there a link between the size of a country's public sector and attitudes towards privatization and individual responsibility? If so, is this connection conditioned by people's level of trust in institutions? This article uses multilevel analysis to investigate the relationship between state policy and public opinion, using three measures of economic left–right attitudes as dependent variables. My starting point is the adjustment hypothesis. A new postulate based on the theory of cognitive dissonance is presented, which is the conditional adjustment hypothesis. My argument is that when investigating the policy-opinion link, we should not focus on the aggregated public opinion, but rather differentiate according to each individual's level of trust in institutions. The hypotheses are tested using individual-level data that are available from the OECD countries, drawn from the 1990 and 2000 waves of the World Values Survey. The findings of this research indicate that while the adjustment hypothesis is firmly rejected in all models, the conditional adjustment hypothesis receives some support. On the individual level, income proves to be the strongest determinant of left–right opinions.

Economic Resources and Remaining Single: Trends Over Time

Dykstra, P. A., Poortman, A.-R. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:39:55 PDT

An influential hypothesis in family research is that having many economic resources decreases women's and increases men's rate of entering a union. A more recent hypothesis is that the strength of the association between economic resources and union formation has weakened over time, given decreasing role differentiation by gender. Rather than looking at the timing of union formation, we look at its non-occurrence. Using the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, we find that, as predicted, high-resource women and low-resource men are more likely to remain single. Contrary to predictions, university-educated men are also more likely to remain single. The association between economic resources and permanent singlehood shows little change over time. Several explanations for this unexpected finding are discussed.

Environmental Attitudes in Cross-National Perspective: A Multilevel Analysis of the ISSP 1993 and 2000

Franzen, A., Meyer, R. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:36:28 PDT

This article discusses the determinants and the development of public concern for the state of the natural environment. First, we review some theoretical approaches that try to explain individual as well as cross-national differences in environmental attitudes. Particularly, we discuss Inglehart's theory of post-materialism, Dunlap and Mertig's globalization explanation, and the prosperity hypothesis. Second, we test these hypotheses by applying multilevel analysis to the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data from the years 1993 and 2000. The results support, above all, the prosperity hypothesis. Individuals with higher relative income within countries display higher levels of environmental concern than their compatriots, and additionally, more concern is reported in wealthier countries than in poorer nations. The results indicate that environmental concern is also closely associated with post-materialistic attitudes and various socio-demographic variables. Comparing the environmental concern measured in the ISSP in 1993 with that in 2000 shows that environmental concern has more or less stabilized since the early 1990s in the countries under scrutiny.

Even in Sweden: The Effect of Immigration on Support for Welfare State Spending

Eger, M. A. — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:37:56 PDT

While the politics of globalization and welfare state retrenchment have garnered much attention in recent years, scholarly research on public support for welfare state expenditure is comparatively sparse. Furthermore, new pressures, specifically international immigration and resulting ethnic heterogeneity, add a new challenge to the welfare state. In this article, I analyse support for social welfare expenditure in Sweden—the country that spends the greatest percentage of its GDP on social expenditure and, until recently, remained relatively ethnically homogeneous. Results from multilevel models reveal that multiple measures of immigration at the county-level have significant negative effects on support for the welfare state. Moreover, recent immigration has a negative effect on attitudes towards universal spending. Thus, this analysis provides clear evidence that ethnic heterogeneity negatively affects support for social welfare expenditure—even in Sweden.

The Legacy of Equality and the Weakness of Law: Within-job Gender Wage Inequality in the Czech Republic

Krizkova, A., Penner, A. M., Petersen, T. — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:00:34 PDT

Using firm-level data from the Czech Republic in the years 1998, 2002, and 2004, we examine whether the introduction of legislative measures for gender equality connected with the accession to the European Union had a significant effect on gender wage inequality. The central conclusion of our analysis is that within-job wage inequality plays a significant role in the Czech labour market, and that there were no substantive changes during the period studied. Czech women doing the same job in the same establishment earn about 10 per cent less than their male co-workers. The smallest gender wage gaps are found in establishments and groups of employees’ representative of or with strong ties to the socialist past. We conclude by speculating that motherhood and women's responsibilities in the home, together with the legal system's lack of legitimacy, limit the impact of legislative changes on practices in Czech society and preserve gender wage discrimination.

The Gender Composition of Workplaces and Men's and Women's Turnover

Bygren, M. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:05:40 PDT

Using a data set of 721,123 employees in 1,890 Swedish workplaces, the author tests whether employees’ propensity to leave a workplace is dependent on the share of the employees of the opposite sex in a workplace. Net of time-invariant workplace heterogeneity, the probability to leave a workplace is found to decrease with the share of employees of the opposite sex. This is true for men as well as women. The results contradict theories suggesting that men and women prefer to work in work settings with a high proportion of employees of their own sex. On the contrary, a plausible explanation of the results is that both men and women prefer work settings with a high proportion of employees of the opposite sex.

Education, Educational Heterogamy, and Self-Assessed Health in Europe: A Multilevel Study of Spousal Effects in 29 European Countries

Huijts, T., Monden, C. W. S., Kraaykamp, G. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:08:57 PDT

This study extends earlier research on educational inequality and health in two ways. First, we examine whether own educational level and spouse's educational level are independently associated with self-assessed health throughout European societies by analysing 29 countries simultaneously. Second, we ask to what extent educational heterogamy at the country level is related to health differences between and within countries. Theories on social capital lead to the hypotheses that average health is better in countries with more educational heterogamy, and educational differentiation in health is smaller in countries with more educational heterogamy. To test our expectations, we use individual data from the European Social Survey of 2002, 2004, and 2006 (N = 59,314) as well as country-level data. Using multilevel analyses, we find that not only one's own educational level, but additionally the spouse's level of education positively affects self-assessed health in Europe. The degree of educational heterogamy does not influence the average level of self-assessed health in a country. However, the positive relationships between own and partner's education and self-assessed health are weaker as the degree of educational heterogamy at the national level is higher.

Alan B. Krueger: What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism.

Hertog, S. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:08:55 PDT

Immigrants' Life Satisfaction in Europe: Between Assimilation and Discrimination

Safi, M. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:08:54 PDT

Using data from the three rounds of the European Social Survey, this article investigates the disparities in life satisfaction measures between the first- and second-generation immigrants, on the one hand, and the natives, on the other hand, in 13 European countries. Two major theoretical hypotheses explaining the lower level of immigrants’ subjective well-being are tested: the straight line assimilation and the effect of discrimination. The main finding is that immigrants’ relative dissatisfaction does not diminish with time and across generations, which refutes the predictions of the assimilation paradigm. However, when ethnic groups are compared, the discrimination some of them perceive in the host society seems to be a more consistent explanation for their lower life satisfaction level. The effect of discrimination is measured with an attempt to correct for the endogeneity bias that it may lead to by using simultaneous regressions with instrumental variables.

Directions of Decommodification: Gender and Generosity in 12 OECD Nations, 1980-2000

Bolzendahl, C. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:08:53 PDT

Although the decommodifying capacity of states (effort to provide a standard of living independent of the market) has been a key focus of welfare state research, its relevance for gender has been less clear. Given large scale changes in gender relations with growing economic, political, and familial equality I suggest the need to reevaluate decommodification from the perspective of gender. Results from descriptive and regression analyses reveal that gender influences are significantly linked to decommodification outcomes. Increases in women's employment and political representation and declining fertility are positively associated with decommodification. Most variation is between nations, yet, a consistent effect of women's labour force participation suggests its influence both within and across welfare states. Outcomes roughly correspond to accepted welfare typologies, and implications for future research on decommodification are discussed.

Has Increased Women's Educational Attainment Led to Greater Earnings Inequality in the United Kingdom? A Multivariate Decomposition Analysis

Breen, R., Salazar, L. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:13:22 PDT

It is widely believed that the growth in women's educational attainment and their increasing labour force participation, together with educational homogamy, will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings. In this article, we use data from the United Kingdom to test that assertion. We use a new method of decomposing the change in household earnings inequality, and this allows us to identify effects associated with women's increasing educational attainment and consequential changes in their propensity to marry, in educational assortative mating and in labour-force participation. We find that changes in women's education and their behavioural consequences account for little if any of the growth in earnings inequality between households in the United Kingdom during the closing decades of the 20th century.

How Do Europeans Perceive Their Healthcare System? Patterns of Satisfaction and Preference for State Involvement in the Field of Healthcare

Wendt, C., Kohl, J., Mischke, M., Pfeifer, M. — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:27:35 PDT

In this article we analyse the relationship between the institutional set-up of healthcare systems and patterns of public support. Two dimensions are distinguished, namely, state responsibility for healthcare provision and satisfaction with healthcare systems. Using data on 14 European countries from the Eurobarometer survey, we find only small effects of institutional indicators on preferences for a strong role of the state. Almost everywhere in Europe, there is high public support for state responsibility in healthcare. Satisfaction with the healthcare system, in contrast, is more strongly related to specific institutional arrangements. In healthcare systems with lower levels of expenditure, fewer general practitioners and higher co-payments, the overall level of satisfaction is lower. This is especially the case in Southern Europe where more pronounced differences between social groups also become apparent. In contrast, healthcare systems with a long tradition of comprehensive coverage regardless of occupation or income seem to generate rather homogenous attitudinal patterns. These characteristics hold for the Scandinavian systems and for the British National Health Service, and therefore, these healthcare systems still seem to live up to the promise of treating all members of the society equally. Countries with high levels of expenditure, high density of general practitioners, and free choice of doctors, which is mainly the case in Social Health Insurance systems, finally, show the highest levels of satisfaction but also more pronounced differences between social classes.

The Dynamics of Political Protest: Feedback Effects and Interdependence in the Explanation of Protest Participation

Opp, K.-D., Kittel, B. — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:06:35 PDT

This article addresses three largely unsolved problems in theory and research on political protest. The first problem concerns feedback effects. The common assumption is that protest is determined by various factors and does not influence its determinants. We propose and test hypotheses about feedback effects of protest on its determinants. The second issue is the usual assumption that the determinants do not influence each other. We propose and test hypotheses about their interdependence. The third issue which is also rarely addressed in the literature is explaining different effects of individual-level variables (i.e. coefficients) by changes of the political context. Since we test our hypotheses with a four-wave panel survey, conducted in Leipzig between 1990 and 1998, we suggest propositions about differential effects of the variables across waves. We find, among other things, that people having been engaged in protest activities under communist rule in 1989 tend to exhibit a long-term decrease of political discontent. Finally, we find that integration in protest-promoting networks is the most important determinant of protest.

Logistic Regression: Why We Cannot Do What We Think We Can Do, and What We Can Do About It

Mood, C. — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:06:34 PDT

Logistic regression estimates do not behave like linear regression estimates in one important respect: They are affected by omitted variables, even when these variables are unrelated to the independent variables in the model. This fact has important implications that have gone largely unnoticed by sociologists. Importantly, we cannot straightforwardly interpret log-odds ratios or odds ratios as effect measures, because they also reflect the degree of unobserved heterogeneity in the model. In addition, we cannot compare log-odds ratios or odds ratios for similar models across groups, samples, or time points, or across models with different independent variables in a sample. This article discusses these problems and possible ways of overcoming them.

The Division of Labour Among European Couples: The Effects of Life Course and Welfare Policy on Value-Practice Configurations

Buhlmann, F., Elcheroth, G., Tettamanti, M. — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:28:29 PST

Even though egalitarian gender values are increasingly spreading among younger Europeans, division of labour does not always comply with this trend. Traditional theories of familial behaviour struggle to explain the resulting paradoxical simultaneity of egalitarian values and inegalitarian practices. In this article, we propose an approach based on the ideas that (i) practices are the translation of values moderated by specific social structures and (ii) incoherencies between values and practices are biographically unstable. Therefore, the biographical stage and welfare policies support or hinder couples in realizing their values in the form of specific divisions of work. On the basis of the multi-level regression analyses of data from the European Social Survey 2004, we show that while most of the European heterosexual couples live in coherent egalitarian configurations of values and practices in their pre-parental phase, they shift to a situation of tension between egalitarian values and gendered practices following the births of their first children. In addition, the magnitude of this shift is strongly moderated by welfare policies. In liberal regimes, the tension between values and practices is transformed into an enduring accommodation to inequality, whereas in socio-democratic regimes, change to unequal practices is rarer and reversible.

Long-term Trends in Educational Inequality in Europe: Class Inequalities and Gender Differences

Breen, R., Luijkx, R., Muller, W., Pollak, R. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:10:38 PST

Using data for seven European countries we analyse trends among women in class differences in educational attainment over the first two-thirds of the 20th century. We also compare educational attainment between men and women; we ask whether class differences among the two sexes are similar or not; and whether trends in class differences over birth cohorts have differed between men and women. We find that, as expected, over the 20th century, inequalities between men and women in their educational attainment declined markedly. More importantly, changes in class inequalities in educational attainment have been similar for both men and women, although, in some countries, women displayed greater inequality at the start of the 20th century and have shown a somewhat greater rate of increase in equality. Patterns of class inequality were also largely similar for both sexes, though in some countries daughters of farmers and the petty-bourgeoisie did relatively better than their brothers. While some of these results reinforce what has long been believed, our central finding of a decline in class inequality in educational attainment for both men and women contradicts the ‘persistent inequality’ in education that earlier scholars claimed existed.

The Transfer of Cultural Knowledge in the Early Childhood: Social and Ethnic Disparities and the Mediating Role of Familial Activities

Becker, B. — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:40:38 PST

Many studies have shown the importance of cultural capital for children's educational success but little is known about the mechanisms of the intergenerational transfer of (receiving country-specific) cultural knowledge. This article analyses social and ethnic disparities in this transmission process with a focus on the mediating role of familial activities. With data from the German project ‘Preschool Education and Educational Careers among Migrant Children’, it is shown that 3–4-year-old children of well-educated, upper-class, and native German parents score significantly higher on a standardized test of cultural knowledge than children of low-educated, lower-class, and Turkish parents. Controlling for activities inside the families (like storytelling) and outside the families (like attending playgroups) reduces the effects of family background strongly and only the effect of the ethnic origin remains significant. Further analyses with the Turkish sample demonstrate that the positive effect of a higher frequency of familial activities on the children's receiving country-specific cultural knowledge only holds under the condition that the parents mostly use German as communication language with their child. This interaction effect indicates that in immigrant families not only the frequency of familial activities is important but also their cultural content.

Life Outcomes of Childless Men and Fathers

Keizer, R., Dykstra, P. A., Poortman, A.-R. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:35:12 PST

Using data from the first wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) for 1,451 men aged 40–59 we examine the impact of permanent childlessness. We extend on previous work by focusing on partnership history as a possible explanation for differences between childless men and fathers. Our results show that the impact of childlessness is weaker than we had expected. Many initial differences between childless men and fathers are attributable to differences in their partnership history. Nevertheless, childless men differ from resident fathers regarding their community involvement, their level of income and their satisfaction with life. Childless men differ from non-resident fathers with respect to their income and work hours. Theoretical and societal implications of our findings are discussed.