Search

The paper addresses a topic still largely under-researched in comparative welfare state literature: the role of right parties in the reform of last resort safety nets. More precisely, the study investigates minimum income schemes' reforms promoted during the Great Recession (2008-2013) by centre-right governments in three countries belonging to the European periphery: Italy, Portugal and Latvia. Despite common political orientation and increased problem pressure, these countries have gone through distinct reform trajectories in their social safety nets that may be labelled expansion (Latvia), retrenchment (Portugal), and continuity (Italy). Against this backdrop, the paper suggests that right parties display substantially different positions and pursue different reform strategies in anti-poverty policies. These differences can be explained by the diverse types of right parties and varying competition and coalition dynamics in the three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the factors associated with a gendered division of childcare among parents in Germany. While much is known on the gender division of housework in families and the economic and sociological factors that may be driving it, we still know relatively little about whether and how these factors may affect the division of unpaid childcare in families. We first assess the relevance of partner’s combined gender ideologies and relative resources on the division of unpaid childcare. Second, we assess whether the effect of economic resources may be contingent on the partners’ agreement or disagreement on gender ideologies concerning maternal employment. We address these questions using data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam) and MLM Growth Curve Models. Our findings consistently show a significant positive effect of partners’ combined gender ideologies and her share of income on his share of childcare. These effects are strongest, and robust, among couples with matching ideologies supporting maternal employment, which we term ‘egalitarian island’ couples. Economically efficient divisions of childcare thus appear dependent upon the couples’ ideological pairing and on mothers’ ideologies towards maternal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this paper describes the small but constant expansion of the cross-state mobile population within the EU in the two decades preceding the 2004 enlargement. This expansion is puzzling in the light of the economic growth and the income convergence of member states over the same period. While the level of geographical mobility within the EU is frequently held to be 'low', data show that it should have been even lower given the rise of prosperity and the decline of income differentials in the EU15. In fact, it is argued that pro-mobility policies and the rise of non-labour migration have countered the diminishing appeal of intra-EU mobility that might be expected on the basis of purely economic conditions. The second part of the paper discusses the rationales and reasons of mobility. A distinction is drawn between observers' and social actors' views of the benefits of free movement. While the former usually put an emphasis on economic rewards, the latter are more likely to stress emotional and identity-linked returns. Survey data on Western European citizens who have resettled in another EU member state are revealing of the multifaceted causes and consequences of geographical mobility. In particular, these data show that identification with Europe and support for EU institutions in the mobile population are strikingly higher than among the general population. While it is true that cross-state mobility can entail economic benefits raising productivity and innovation, its political dividends are possibly even clearer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on happiness finds that rising incomes do not generally lead to increases in happiness. This finding suggests that economic migration – i.e., migration motivated by the prospect of increased income – might not bring greater happiness: when economic migrants believe that migration will improve their lives, that belief might be misguided at least insofar as ‘improvement’ is conceived in terms related to happiness. Perhaps economic migration under certain conditions even results in lower happiness, if it involves sacrifices in other respects that are more consequential for happiness. This paper explores these propositions via comparison of Romanian migrants to non-migrants (using data from the European Social Survey) and finds that returned migrants report lower happiness than non-migrants (controlling for other variables), while migrants who have not returned are not different in happiness from stayers. The cross-sectional analysis cannot directly answer questions about the consequences of migration and return – there are no data on the migrants' happiness prior to migration. But the analysis sharpens the questions that might be asked in future research and considers how various scenarios would be consistent with the findings produced here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the question of the relative importance of within and between country differences in income and material deprivation in the European Union in the context of recent suggestions that insufficient attention has been paid to the latter. In particular, we respond to the argument that the 'state bounded' relative income approach obscures the significance of EU-wide reference groups. Making use of EU-SILC 2004, we have sought to quantify the magnitude of relevant within and between country differences and their relative impact. Overall, our analysis supports the view that the predominant frame of reference is a national one. The limited impact of European reference groups observed in our analysis does not require explanation in terms of the emergence of a European social stratification system. Furthermore, the significance of such comparisons depends not only on the expectations of those affected by European inequalities but on the degree of legitimacy afforded to ensuing demands. While an EU-wide income-threshold can provide information regarding progress of the Union towards greater social cohesion, its usage for this purpose does not require a strong sense of European identity. Given the current status of the European Social Model, it would seem unwise to attribute an undue degree of policy relevance to the relatively modest impact of EU-wide reference groups revealed in our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper three methods of relativizations are used: (1) we apply the conventional poverty approach: the poor are those whose income remains below 60 percent of the national equivalent disposable income, (2) we collapse nations together into one data pool and calculate a poverty line for the EU, and (3) we decompose nation states into smaller units representing the poorest and richest areas. Within-nation differences seem to be more pronounced than differences between nations. In the Nordic countries incomes between regions as well as between individuals are more evenly distributed and, consequently, the national means are more representative for the whole countries. Moreover, the Nordic cluster, together with central Europe, is robust against the method of comparison. The method affects the Mediterranean countries. The use of the European poverty line leads to poverty rates two to three times higher than analyses based on national data. The regional variation in these countries is the widest. For this reason, conclusions based on national means may be misleading and national means obscure more than they reveal. In societies with large socio-economic and regional variation in income, and consequently in consumption capacities, purchasing power parities implicitly assuming homogeneous consumption patterns over society may give a distorted picture of the price levels in the country in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the consequences for measurement of material deprivation, consistent poverty and economic vulnerability of the shift from the ECHP data set to the EU-SILC instrument. Despite the restricted number of deprivation items available in EU-SILC, we show that there is a substantial overlap between such measures when they are estimated using EU-wide and a set of Irish specific indicators. By placing the EU-wide measures in the context of the full range of Irish indicators, we demonstrate that they allow us to identify clusters of individuals sharply differentiated in terms of their multidimensional deprivation profiles. They also provide an understanding of the socio-economic factors associated with such differentiation that departs in only modest respects from that derived from the more comprehensive set of Irish specific indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address issues relating to vulnerability to economic exclusion and levels of economic exclusion in Europe. We do so by applying latent class models to data from the European Community Household Panel for thirteen countries. This approach allows us to distinguish between vulnerability to economic exclusion and exposure to multiple deprivation at a particular point in time. The results of our analysis confirm that in every country it is possible to distinguish between a vulnerable and a non-vulnerable class. Association between income poverty, life-style deprivation and subjective economic strain is accounted for by allocating individuals to the categories of this latent variable. The size of the vulnerable class varies across countries in line with expectations derived from welfare regime theory. Between class differentiation is weakest in social democratic regimes but otherwise the pattern of differentiation is remarkably similar. The key discriminatory factor is life-style deprivation, followed by income and economic strain. Social class and employment status are powerful predictors of latent class membership in all countries but the strength of these relationships varies across welfare regimes. Individual biography and life events are also related to vulnerability to economic exclusion. However, there is no evidence that they account for any significant part of the socio-economic structuring of vulnerability and no support is found for the hypothesis that social exclusion has come to transcend class boundaries and become a matter of individual biography. However, the extent of socio-economic structuring does vary substantially across welfare regimes. Levels of economic exclusion, in the sense of current exposure to multiple deprivation, also vary systematically by welfare regime and social class. Taking both vulnerability to economic exclusion and levels of exclusion into account suggests that care should be exercised in moving from evidence on the dynamic nature of poverty and economic exclusion to arguments relating to the superiority of selective over universal social policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the impact of temporary work on two dimensions of social inequality: income and career mobility. Additionally, we are taking a comparative perspective on this subject by comparing Germany and the UK. To investigate the effects of temporary work we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Study on non-self-employed respondents. The results show that temporary work does influence the system of social inequality: we found wage penalties and an increased probability of severe negative effects on the working careers of temporarily employed persons in both countries (net of education, age, and a variety of other covariates). Thus we can conclude that temporary employment represents a substantial socio-economic risk for employees. Most importantly, this holds true for both the German and the British case, two quite distinct labour market regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent poverty research based on analyses of panel data have highlighted the importance of income dynamics. In this paper we study mobility into and out of relative income poverty from one year to the next using data for twelve countries from the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP). The ECHP has unique potential as a harmonized data set to serve as the basis for comparisons of income and poverty dynamics across EU countries, and here we begin exploiting this potential by analysing income poverty transitions from Wave 1 to Wave 2. As well as describing the extent of these transitions, we analyse the pattern by fitting log-linear and linear by linear models commonly employed in the analysis of social mobility. Moving from general to specific models we show the relative impact of hierarchy, immobility and affinity effects. Our analysis shows that cross-national variation in short-term poverty dynamics is predominantly a consequence of 'shift' rather then 'association effects'. Variation across countries in patterns of poverty persistence is extremely modest. Models that assume that the processes underlying poverty dynamics are constant across countries perform almost as well as those that allow for cross-national variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether changes in women's and men's contributions to household income in Germany and Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with changes in unpaid work. The current health crisis represents a unique opportunity to explore these topics, because the restrictive measures imposed during the lockdown are likely to have generated an unexpected shock to both domestic work and individual ability to contribute to household income. Using data from two novel datasets collected in Germany and Italy during the pandemic, this article shows that changes to both contribution to household income and unpaid activities during the crisis have been gendered, affecting women more negatively than men. In addition, we suggest that economic disturbances during the pandemic are associated with gendered changes in unpaid work that seem to be driven by changes in bargaining power in both countries. Our results also show some support for enhanced traditionalization of domestic life among German couples during the crisis, as predicted by gender display theories, albeit only regarding childcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research on pensions and retirement income, it has been frequently reasoned that the economic situation in later life is determined by an interplay of individual and institutional factors. However, previous studies in this field either focus only on individual determinants or on macro-level outcomes using aggregated data. We apply a multilevel approach to examine the impact of institutional factors on the link of individual pension income and previous employment history. The underlying research question is of how national pension systems shape this relationship; whether flexible careers and atypical employment are compensated for or, on the contrary, ‘penalised’ with a low pension income. We combine the life-history data of individuals in 13 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARELIFE) with macro-data on national pension systems. While we find little cross-national variation for men, for women the strength of the relationship of employment history and pension income differs between countries and is significantly moderated by factors related to the pension system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses to what extent the incorporation of women into the labour market and their consequent economic contribution to family income affects couple's relationships. We focus particularly on Spanish couples, using a qualitative method that consists of 48 in-depth interviews of 16 couples. The partners in each couple were first interviewed together and then separately. From the analysis of the interviews, we have identified three types of dual-income couples: 'traditional', 'egalitarian' and 'false egalitarian' couples. According to our findings, these three types of couples differ in the meaning that men and women attribute to money and in the dynamics and processes related to the control and expenditure of money. Whereas for the majority of women money is linked to personal autonomy, their salaries do not automatically generate a balance between the partners. Moreover, despite social changes, gender socialisation and gender roles persist within the couple, reinforcing, for instance, the belief that men symbolically remain the main providers in dual-income couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social status and religiosity could be illuminating in the explanation of religiosity. This has been suggested by numerous sociologically minded authors. Although not consistent across all national samples, findings from the current study, based on World Values Survey data (1999-2001), did indicate the predominance of a moderate but positive association between low social status and high religiosity among European countries with a Christian heritage. Consequently, the results lent limited support to the classical deprivation thesis, since in none of the samples analyzed could a positive association between high social status and high religiosity could be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study contradictory hypotheses are tested about the changing income advantages of Communist Party (CP) members derived from the Elite Circulation Thesis and the Elite Reproduction Thesis, using cross-sectional datasets from before and during the transformation process. CP members are matched with non-CP members on several important income determinants such as human capital, occupational class, market capital, age, gender, and marital status. Independent-samples t-tests, on differences in mean personal (ln)income reveal that CP members earn more than non-CP members do before and during the transformation process. An ANOVA shows that the income advantages of CP members are most persistent in the Czech Republic and Russia while they get smaller in Slovakia and Hungary. Comparing the four countries suggests that the remaining income advantages of CP members may partly be explained by transformation specific differences between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Finland and Spain, marriage rates are equally low, yet cohabitation is rare in Spain and common in Finland. The fertility rate has fallen sharply in Spain, whereas in Finland it is relatively high. Spaniards delay childbearing later than Finns. These characteristics of family formation are not attributed to modern contraceptives, cohabitation or to the female employment rate. Neither women's labour market position nor family policy is the key explanatory factor for the differences in patterns of first family formation and fertility. However, the employment and financial insecurity of young people seem to be an influential factor having negative effects on the first family formation in Finland and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]