European Sociological Review - Advance Access

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

Torssander, J., Erikson, R. — 2009-07-01

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. — 2009-06-11

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. — 2009-06-05

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. — 2009-06-05

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. — 2009-06-05

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. — 2009-06-03

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

Kumlin, J. — 2009-05-22

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. — 2009-05-22

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. — 2009-05-15

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. — 2009-05-04

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.

Flexible Employment and Inequality in Europe

Barbieri, P. — 2009-05-04

Gender Differences in Intragenerational Mobility: The Case of Estonia

Titma, M., Roots, A., Soidla, I. — 2009-04-30

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. — 2009-04-30

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. — 2009-04-30

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. — 2009-04-16

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. — 2009-04-16

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. — 2009-04-14

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. — 2009-04-02

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. — 2009-03-25

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. — 2009-03-18

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. — 2009-03-18

Immigrants' Life Satisfaction in Europe: Between Assimilation and Discrimination

Safi, M. — 2009-03-18

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. — 2009-03-18

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.

Labour Market Flexibilization and its Consequences in Italy

Barbieri, P., Scherer, S. — 2009-03-16

Labor market ‘flexibilization’ or ‘deregulation’ is seen by many as a requirement for economic and occupational growth. As one route towards more flexibility, many European countries increased the so-called atypical or non-standard forms of employment while leaving the regulation of existing employment relations largely unchanged. In Italy, this led to a strong segmentation of the labour market. As employment is the only connection to a series of welfare entitlements, this praxis might lead to strong cleavages in the society. In this paper, we investigate the ongoing process of labour market ‘flexibilization’ and its consequences for individual labour market careers and social inequalities and ask whether the deregulation has fulfilled the expectations attached to it. In detail, we study the entries into the marginal labour market and the consequences for employment careers of these forms of ‘new’ flexible employment. Empirical findings based on Indagine Longitudinale sulle Famiglie Italiane data cast doubts on the effectiveness of the specific form of market deregulation in Italy and confirm strong long-term implications of atypical employment episodes for career chances.

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

Breen, R., Salazar, L. — 2009-03-14

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. — 2009-03-13

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.

Socio-economic Risks of Atypical Employment Relationships: Evidence from the German Labour Market

Giesecke, J. — 2009-03-13

In this article, I examine the impact of atypical working arrangements on both objective and subjective dimensions of social inequality. The analysed types of atypical employment are fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work, and part-time employment, respectively. It is argued that these working arrangements are not homogeneous with respect to their socio-economic consequences, because they modify different aspects of the standard employment relationship. In order to investigate the effects of these types of employment, I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 2001–2005 on non-self-employed respondents. The results show that fixed-term contracts and agency work (being forms of external flexibility) have more severe negative socio-economic consequences than part-time employment (being a form of internal flexibility). Given that weak labour market groups face an increased risk of holding temporary jobs, the empirical findings clearly indicate the substantial impact of atypical employment on the extent and the structure of social inequality.

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

Opp, K.-D., Kittel, B. — 2009-03-09

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. — 2009-03-09

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. — 2009-02-19

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. — 2009-02-18

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.

Fixed-Term Contracts at Labour Market Entry in West Germany: Implications for Job Search and First Job Quality

Gebel, M. — 2009-02-11

Fixed-term contracts have become very relevant in the transition from school to work. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the period 1984–2006, this article analyses differences in the timing of receiving a fixed-term contract or a permanent contract throughout the duration of first-job search and whether fixed-term contracts are associated with lower initial wages. Competing risk duration models reveal that school leavers initially receive more often permanent contracts but that a certain proportion also accepts temporary jobs. For transitions to both fixed-term and permanent contracts, we find that the longer the time spent searching for a job, the lower the transition probability to a job. The negative duration dependence effect is even more pronounced for fixed-term employment. Comparing labour market entrants with similar individual and job characteristics using propensity score matching techniques show that entrants earn significantly less in fixed-term jobs compared to permanent employment. Wage penalties are slightly larger for those who actually choose fixed-term contracts in their first job, whereas randomly allocated job entrants would suffer lower wage losses. Especially graduates from tertiary education suffer high initial wage losses in fixed-term contracts.

Sebastian Sattler: Plagiate in Hausarbeiten. Erklarungsmodelle mit Hilfe der Rational Choice Theorie.

Stocke, V. — 2009-02-03

The Effects of Non-Employment in Early Work-Life on Subsequent Employment Chances of Individuals in The Netherlands

Luijkx, R., Wolbers, M. H. J. — 2009-02-03

In this article, the effects of non-employment in early work-life on subsequent employment chances of individuals in the Netherlands are examined. A main concern is whether the experience of non-employment in the beginning of the career (permanently) damages a worker's later employment opportunities (that is, the likelihood of exit out of and re-entry into employment). The empirical analysis is based on five retrospective life-history surveys collected in the Netherlands in the period 1992–2003, with full information on employment histories of individuals. The analytic sample consists of 7,761 respondents, who left education since the 1950s. The results of the empirical analysis first of all show that the duration of non-employment in the first 3 years after leaving education (and not the number of non-employment spells in that period) increases the likelihood of exiting employment in the subsequent time period (up until 15 years after leaving education). This finding holds for both men and women. Second, a negative duration effect of non-employment on the likelihood of re-entering employment after a job loss is found, but for men only. These results imply that non-employment in early work-life indeed has a scarring effect on subsequent employment chances of individuals in the Dutch labour market.

Learning to Trust: Networks Effects Through Time

Barrera, D., van de Bunt, G. G. — 2009-01-17

This article investigates the effects of information originating from social networks on the development of interpersonal trust relations in the context of a dialysis department of a Dutch medium-sized hospital. Hypotheses on learning effects are developed from existing theories and tested using longitudinal data concerning the complete networks of trust and (informal) communication relations among employees observed at four different time points. The results support the existence of a learning mechanism operating both within dyads and through the social networks in which the dyads are embedded: actors learn to trust (or distrust) each other from their own past experience as well as from information that they receive from colleagues with whom they have regular communication.

Intergenerational Help and Care in Europe

Brandt, M., Haberkern, K., Szydlik, M. — 2009-01-17

In Europe, on average, three times as many adult children occasionally help their parents with the housekeeping than do provide regular physical care. This is not surprising, considering the great differences between these two types of support. Care follows needs, whereas help tends to be given sporadically when one has the opportunity. In the familial welfare states in Southern Europe, where little professional support is available, provision of care by children is more likely—whereas parents in the north are more likely to receive help in the household or in dealing with the authorities. Logistic multi-level models enable these differences to be traced back to the availability of social and health services in the individual countries. There is a ‘crowding in’ of the help children give their parents, but a ‘crowding out’ of physical care. Overall, the results based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement data thus support the specialization hypothesis: professional providers take over the medically demanding and regular physical care, whereas the family is more likely to provide the less demanding, spontaneous help. Everyone does what they do best. The overall care of older people thus tends to be assured both quantitatively and qualitatively by well-developed service systems.

Do Parents Coordinate Their Work Schedules? A Comparison of Dutch, Flemish, and Italian Dual-Earner Households

Carriero, R., Ghysels, J., Van Klaveren, C. — 2009-01-13

As a consequence of the rising number of dual-earner households, many contemporary couples in Europe face two potentially conflicting job schedules when figuring out how to allocate their time over a week. In this article, we study how dual-earner couples with children organize their working time in Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands. We place working time coordination explicitly in a comparative framework to allow cross-country differences in time-scheduling mechanisms to be revealed. We define working time coordination as an act that leads to hours of paid work performed by both parents at the same moment and of which the joint nature cannot be explained by factors other than the partners’ potential to communicate on the timing of their work. Our main findings are as follows: (1) parents actively coordinate their working times in all three societies; (2) on average, Italian and Flemish dual-earner parents tend to synchronize (increase their work-time overlap), which indicates that parents aim at spending non-market time jointly; and (3) Dutch dual-earner parents tend to de-synchronize (decrease work-time overlap), which indicates that the latter tend to maximize the amount of time that at least one parent is out of the job.

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

Becker, B. — 2009-01-12

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.

United But Divided: Welfare Regimes and the Level and Variance in Public Support for Redistribution

Jaeger, M. M. — 2009-01-12

Previous studies find little evidence that welfare regimes affect public support for welfare state principles, policies, and programmes in any systematic way. This article argues that limitations in operational definitions of welfare regimes might explain why previous studies do not find any link between regimes and attitudes. Furthermore, the article suggests that welfare regimes should affect both mean levels of support for the welfare state and the variance in attitudes. The article develops a new conceptualization of welfare regimes based on a set of regime-type indicators measured at the country-level and latent variables models. My empirical analysis of support for redistribution across 15 countries suggests that the regime rank order (low to high) with respect to support for redistribution is Liberal, Social Democratic, and Conservative. The regime rank order with respect to the variance in support for redistribution is Liberal, Conservative, and Social Democratic. My findings give rise to a simple two-dimensional typology of regime differences in support for redistribution.

Life Outcomes of Childless Men and Fathers

Keizer, R., Dykstra, P. A., Poortman, A.-R. — 2009-01-09

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.

History, Case Studies, Statistics, and Causal Inference

Abell, P. — 2008-12-23

The article explores the logic of the orthodox statistical model of causal inference, where many observations are required and compares it with a complementary model of Bayesian Narratives where unique events are encountered.

Labour Market, Job Opportunities, and Transitions to Self-Employment: Evidence from Switzerland from the Mid-1960s to the Late 1980s

Buchmann, M., Kriesi, I., Sacchi, S. — 2008-12-20

In recent years, self-employment has risen in several Western countries including Switzerland. The controversial discussion of this rise is attributable to shortcomings of empirical research, namely, to the lack of systematically considering, both at the macro- and the micro-level, the push and pull factors that may account for entry into self-employment. Little is known about how macroeconomic forces together with individual-level push and pull factors shape transitions into self-employment. Even less is known about how these factors play out in occupationally segmented labour markets. This paper thus examines how the overall climate for setting up a business, individual job opportunities, and structural characteristics of labour-market positions affect transitions to self-employment in the occupationally segmented Swiss labour market. Based on two data sets, we run event history models. The Swiss Life History Study provides information on transitions into self-employment. With the Swiss Job Monitor, we construct indicators of the time-variant aggregate- and individual-level opportunities and incentives for setting up a business. Results indicate that moves into self-employment are affected both by macroeconomic conditions, individual job opportunities, and structural characteristics of the labour market position, whereby pull factors dominate at the macro level and the interplay of push and pull factors at the individual level.

Ethnic Residential Segregation, Social Contacts, and Anti-Minority Attitudes in European Societies

Semyonov, M., Glikman, A. — 2008-12-16

Ethnic residential segregation has long been viewed as a major structural mechanism through which ethnic and racial minorities are denied equal access to opportunities, rewards, and amenities. Residential segregation also decreases opportunities for establishment and development of social ties and contacts between members of ethnic minorities and members of the majority population. This article examines the complex inter-relations between ethnic residential segregation, inter-ethnic social contacts and attitudes toward minorities within the context of European societies. It specifically examines the following hypotheses: first, ethnic residential segregation (i.e. residence in homogeneous all-European neighbourhoods) restricts opportunities for establishment and development of inter-ethnic social contacts; second, positive inter-ethnic contacts are likely to reduce anti-minority attitudes (i.e. perception of threat and social distance); and third, contact mediates the relations between the ethnic composition of neighbourhood of residence and anti-minority attitudes. Using data from the 2003 European Social Survey for 21 European countries a series of multi-level regression models are estimated to examine the hypotheses within a cross-national comparative framework. Although the findings generally support the theoretical expectations, they also underscore the complex ways in which patterns of ethnic residential segregation affect attitudes toward minority populations through inter-ethnic contacts. Explanations for the findings are offered and discussed in light of the theoretical expectations presented at the outset of this article.

What are the Reasons for Differences in Job Satisfaction across Europe? Individual, Compositional, and Institutional Explanations

Pichler, F., Wallace, C. — 2008-12-15

This article looks at the determinants of job satisfaction in 27 European countries at both the individual and country level. Individual determinants include type of occupation, supervision responsibilities, working hours, and the assessment of various dimensions, such as intrinsic and extrinsic job characteristics. These factors already explain a large share of country-level variation which renders country differences in job satisfaction foremost the result of individual factors and the composition of the workforce. Notwithstanding this finding, some countries still have higher job satisfaction (country premium) whilst others have less job satisfaction (country penalty) once individual-level explanations are taken into account. To explain this, we considered the effects of country-level institutional factors, such as wage levels, extent of unionization, levels of unemployment and inequality, of which wage levels were the most important.

Research Note: Digital Divide Across Borders--A Cross-National Study of Adolescents' Use of Digital Technologies

Notten, N., Peter, J., Kraaykamp, G., Valkenburg, P. M. — 2008-12-11

In this study, we analyse digital divides in terms of social inequality in digital access and use patterns from a hierarchical perspective. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 in 30 nations, we focus on social cleavages in mid-adolescents’ access and use of digital technologies, taking into account both individual-level and country-level influences. Our study shows that adolescents from higher socio-economic and two-parent family households are more likely to have Internet access at home. Additionally, adolescents from higher-status families use the Internet more often for informational purposes than children from lower-status families. Adolescents from single-parent are less likely to have home Internet access. Nevertheless, they use the Internet more frequently for information and communication and play computer games more often than their peers living in two-parent families. Testing simultaneously individual and country characteristics shows that a country's level of modernization can be separated into compositional and contextual effects. Overall, a country's level of modernization only affects whether digital applications are available at the family home, but not how they are used. These findings suggest that once a family has access to the Internet, the digital use patterns of their adolescent children do not differ across nations.

Corporate Governance and Earnings Inequality in the OECD Countries 1979-2000

Sjoberg, O. — 2008-12-09

The purpose of this article is to analyse the role of corporate governance in explaining cross-national differences and trends in earnings inequality in a sample of OECD countries between 1979 and 2000. It is argued that since corporate governance is fundamentally a question of in whose interest corporations are run, it will have important consequences for how the returns from production are distributed among the parties with a stake in the corporation. The article outlines an institutional approach to corporate governance and its cross-national variation as well as formulates a number of mechanisms whereby corporate governance may influence earnings inequality. The empirical assessment indicates that central aspects of these institutions, such as the role of the stock market in channelling capital to corporations, the extent of mergers and acquisitions, and protection of minority shareholders are all related to cross-national differences and trends in earnings inequality (as measured by the p90/p10 ratio). The conclusion is that corporate governance institutions and their respective managerial practices can make a significant contribution to our understanding of fundamental stratification processes.

The Inequality of Fair Play. Lottery Gambling and Social Stratification in Germany

Beckert, J., Lutter, M. — 2008-11-25

On the basis of a telephone survey conducted on a random sample of the German residential population, we examine the distribution effects state lotteries have on Germany's social structure. Lotteries are highly taxed economic transactions, whose proceeds make up a considerable share of public fiscal revenues. Our analysis shows that lotteries are a form of regressive taxation. Using key demographic indicators, such as age, citizenship, and levels of income and education, we demonstrate the effects of fiscal redistribution.

Libby Schweber: Disciplining Statistics. Demography and Vital Statistics in France and England, 1830-1885

Blum, A. — 2008-11-25

Loek Halman, Ronald Inglehart, Jaime Diez-Medrano, Ruud Luijkx, Alejandro Morena, and Miguel Basanez (Eds.): Changing Values and Beliefs in 85 Countries: Trends from the Values Surveys from 1981 to 2004. Volume 11

Loveless, M. — 2008-11-24

Irena Kogan, Michael Gebel, and Clemens Noelke (Eds.): Europe Enlarged: A Handbook of Education, Labour, and Welfare Regimes in Central and Eastern Europe

Loveless, M. — 2008-11-24

In-work Benefits for Low-wage Jobs: Can Additional Income Reduce Employment Stability?

Krug, G. — 2008-11-24

In-work benefits, which provide financial supplements to employees in low-wage jobs, are an instrument of active labour market policy used to encourage the labour market integration of low-skilled workers and the long-term unemployed. This paper argues that although government subsidies increase overall wages, employees interpret them as a signal that employers are unwilling to behave according to the norm of reciprocity. This leads to negative side-effects on employment stability, counteracting the positive effects of additional income on employment stability. The present article tests these hypotheses using a survey of in-work benefit recipients, with non-recipients as a comparison group. The method of propensity score matching is applied to eliminate all compositional differences between benefit recipients and non-recipients except for the source of their income. It is shown that in-work benefits lead to perceived violations of reciprocity. However, whether this explains why in-work benefits are not successful in promoting employment stability remains an open question.

Welfare States, Labour Market Institutions and the Working Poor: A Comparative Analysis of 20 European Countries

Lohmann, H. — 2008-11-20

This article regards the incidence of in-work poverty and how it is reduced by the payment of social transfers in 20 European countries. It combines a micro- and a macro-level perspective in two-level models. The basis for the analysis is micro-data from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2005 and macro-data from sources such as the OECD and Eurostat. The broad comparative perspective allows for a separation of different institutional influences, namely the influence of the degree of decommodification, defamilization, and bargaining centralization. In contrast to previous studies on the working poor which have mainly described country differences in in-work poverty, this article focuses on the question of how such differences can be explained from a broader perspective of poverty research. In general, the results confirm the overall hypothesis that both welfare state measures and labour market institutions have an influence on in-work poverty. By analysing influences on pre-transfer poverty and poverty reduction separately, the author shows that such factors have varied effects on in-work poverty. While bargaining centralization proves to be relevant for the distribution of pre-transfer incomes only, the set-up of the social security system, in particular, impacts the extent of poverty reduction.

Trust in Cross-national Labour Relations: A Case Study of an Anglo-Dutch European Works Council

Timming, A. R. — 2008-11-17

Using in-depth case study research conducted at a UK-based European Works Council, this article explores the dynamics of cross-national trust relations between workers' representatives. The results of the study point to a deficiency of trust between the two largest national delegations of workers on the forum. I integrate the sociological theory of dramaturgy and the varieties of capitalism framework in order to explain this deficiency. It is argued that the weak relations of trust among the delegates stem from the competitive pressures of employment in a multinational firm, the corresponding parochial interest representation and the unequal power relations within the forum that derive from the contextual features of each delegation's national system of corporate governance. The prospects for building trust via reflexivity and learning are also considered.

Coordination and Control in Corporate Networks: United States and Germany in Comparison, 1896-1938

Windolf, P. — 2008-11-06

In the late 19th century, a relatively dense network was created among the large public corporations. This corporate network is examined here for the period between 1896 and 1938 in Germany and the United States. Corporate networks served several purposes: they developed into a medium of self-control in managerially run companies; they became an instrument of bank control in capital-intensive companies; furthermore, they were institutions to regulate competition in the age of mass production. In Germany, the density and centralization of the corporate network increased parallel to the growing degree of cartelization within the economy (cooperative capitalism). In the United States, the density of the network decreased in relation to the extent that antitrust laws were enforced (competitive capitalism).

Socio-economic Payoffs of Voluntary Association Involvement: A Dutch Life Course Study

Ruiter, S., De Graaf, N. D. — 2008-09-21

Over the last three decades, research on occupational attainment has been extended with studies indicating the importance of social resources. We study socio-economic effects of voluntary association involvement, which is an important source of weak ties for getting a better job. First, we determine to what extent involvement causes better socio-economic outcomes. Second, we test whether specific voluntary associations provide larger socio-economic payoffs than others. We use life course data from the Family Survey of the Dutch Population 2000 to test our hypotheses. Because the timing of job changes and voluntary participation is known, we are able to test for socio-economic effects of involvement at the time of a job start while controlling for previous socio-economic characteristics. Consequently, the endogeneity problem from which much research in this field suffers has been overcome. Results show that members are more likely to start new jobs which are better in terms of status and earnings than those of non-members. Besides, volunteering is beneficial when entering the labour market for the first time. Furthermore, members of associations with more high status co-members are more likely to get a new job and these jobs are of higher status too. Hence, voluntary association involvement definitely pays off.

The Effects of Immigrant Population Size, Unemployment, and Individual Characteristics on Voting for the Vlaams Blok in Flanders 1991-1999

Rink, N., Phalet, K., Swyngedouw, M. — 2008-05-09

This study examines the effects of contextual characteristics on exclusionary reactions. Extending explanations of anti-immigrant attitudes from group threat theory to the prediction of contextual variation in voting behaviour, we expect more voting for the anti-immigrant party Vlaams Blok with increasing immigrant population size and unemployment. We test the effects of these contextual factors, as well as individual characteristics and cross-level interactions, over time (1991–1995–1999), using multilevel analysis (i.e. binary logistic regression for three-level repeated measurement data). To this end, we used panel data that consist of pooled individual records across repeated General Election Surveys¹ in Flanders in 1991, 1995, and 1999 (N = 3,748 respondents) to which we added time-variant contextual data in 175 municipalities. As expected, immigrant population size increases people's likelihood to vote for the Vlaams Blok and this effect is curvilinear. The level of unemployment, however, does not explain the contextual variation in Vlaams Blok voting. At the individual level, people with lower occupational status and unemployed people are more likely to vote for the Vlaams Blok. In addition, a significant cross-level interaction indicates that the effect of immigrant population size on the support for the Vlaams Blok is significantly reduced among people with higher levels of education. Finally, the non-linear and conditional effects of immigrant population size are fully replicated over time.

Explaining Social Class Inequalities in Smoking: The Role of Education, Self-Efficacy, and Deprivation

Layte, R., Whelan, C. T. — 2008-03-25

Rates of smoking have decreased dramatically in most Northern European countries over the last 50 years or so, but manual working class groups are substantially more likely to smoke daily than are the professional and managerial classes. This article examines three hypotheses about the processes producing these inequalities. The first argues that social class inequalities reflect differences across education groups in knowledge of the risks of smoking. The second suggests that the living conditions of lower social class groups leads to the development of lower self-efficacy and a lower propensity to quit smoking. The third states that smoking has a functional use among poorer individuals. This article draws upon data from the Republic of Ireland to assess these hypotheses. Our analysis provides some support for the first hypothesis in that education independently reduces the odds of a manual class person smoking relative to a non-manual by 12 per cent. The second hypothesis is not supported by the data. The third hypothesis gains the most support: measures of disadvantage and deprivation account for almost one-third of the class differential in smoking. The results suggest that smoking cessation policy should reflect the importance of social and economic context in quitting behaviour.