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Nothing puzzles sociologists of religion more than the reasons and the patterns behind religious change. In the literature on secularization processes, it is broadly accepted that ongoing modernization has undermined many of the pillars of institutional religions, leading to widespread religious decline. While a considerable body of research investigates the "why(s)" of this decline, the main focus of this paper is on the "how." Drawing on CARPE, a harmonized dataset concerning church attendance with almost 2 million observations spanning over 40 years in 39 European countries, this article disentangles the contributions of period change and cohort replacement to the general religious decline. It shows that this decline reflects a real population dynamic based on generational replacement. It is not historical events or developments affecting everyone that undermine religion: new and less religious cohorts are replacing old and more religious ones. Like many other population dynamics, this process is described by an S-shaped curve and applies—with different speeds and levels—to almost all the European countries considered herein. These findings suggest that the effects of the processes of modernization on the mechanisms of religious socialization should be scrutinized more carefully when studying the reasons behind religious decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are a cornerstone of democracy in Europe. Nonetheless, "civil society" and "political society" should not be equated as membership-based organizations are not necessarily politically engaged. This paper theorizes and empirically examines which membership-based CSOs engage in interest representation through sustained advocacy activity. We propose an incentive-theoretical framework on CSO investments in advocacy activities—a collective, non-exclusive incentive from which also non-members can profit—by organizations fundamentally dependent on member support. Theorizing how CSOs' own structural characteristics, resource dependencies, and government demand for CSO input affect how CSOs reconcile selective and collective incentive provision, we test our hypotheses using new data from four recent surveys conducted in four European democracies. In line with our framework, CSOs organizing individual citizens rather than corporate actors and those pursuing member interests are less likely to engage in advocacy, while CSO professionalization and state funding access enhance CSOs' propensities to do so. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the former structural CSO characteristics are similarly relevant for CSO advocacy across distinct country settings, while the role of resource variables is mediated by institutional context revealing an important source of inequality in democratic interest representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A widely held argument is that organizations such as the European Community will only succeed if an identification with these organizations develops; and the EC creates this identification. This, in turn, is supposed to diminish identification with national and subnational regions. Based on this argument, some testable propositions are suggested referring to the conditions under which identifications with hierarchical regions -- in this paper Europe, nation states and sub-national regions -- arise and how these identifications are causally related. The propositions are tested with a two-wave panel study carried out in 2000 and 2002 in East Germany. In contrast to the previous argument, we found positive correlations between the three identifications. Furthermore, European identification has positive causal effects on sub-national and national identifications, and sub-national identification has positive causal effects on national and European identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a new age period cohort model to show that among cohorts born between 1935 and 1975, cohorts born around 1950 are significantly above the income trend in most countries. However, such inequalities between generations are much stronger in conservative, continental European welfare states, compared to social democratic and liberal welfare states. As we show, this is because conservative welfare states expose some cohorts to high youth unemployment and make lifetime earnings dependent on a favorable entry into the labor market. We thus demonstrate that conservative welfare states have put the burden of adjustment to the post-1975 economic slowdown on birth cohorts that could not get stable jobs before 1975, while similar cohort inequalities are much weaker in liberal and social democratic welfare states. In these latter two welfare regimes, the burden of adjustment to the post-1975 economic slowdown was not put on the shoulders of some cohorts relative to others. Our analysis is the first to show which welfare regimes are more conducive to such inequalities between cohorts and what mechanisms lead to these material cohort inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Though it has produced a high-quality body of research, the study of substance use has remained highly individualized in its focus. This paper adds further sociological understanding to that research. Using hierarchical models, the following explores how institutional and criminological theories can be incorporated into substance use research by examining cigarette smoking at 3 levels of variation. Two main findings emerge. First, national legal context plays a role in understanding individual-level probabilities of substance use, even after controlling for individual and local characteristics. For example, lower probabilities of smoking occur where there are smoking bans and minimum purchase ages. Second, the effects of local context, such as unemployment and the percentage of young people, exhibit significant effects on individual-level cigarette use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The questions asked in the paper are whether and to what extent the employment situation among recent third-country immigrants differs across European Union countries and how it is related to these countries' labor market characteristics. The European Labor Force Survey data for the 1990s are used to disentangle the roles that the individual characteristics of immigrants, on the one hand, and the structural features of the receiving societies, on the other, play in the process of immigrants' labor market integration. The results of multilevel regression analyses confirm that in receiving countries with stronger demand for low-skilled labor, unprivileged immigrants are less disadvantaged at employment entry. Among men immigrants' employment disadvantages are found to be lower in liberal welfare states marked by their flexible labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the issue of immigrant incorporation in developed nations. Particular focus is given to how social integration opportunities and limitations have impacted and influenced social rights among immigrants in developed countries across Europe and in North America. Further topics of discussion include a historical outlook on immigration incorporation and social rights, and the interaction between government institutions and immigrant groups. The author concludes by asserting that location is significant in understanding integration and the immigration towards developed countries, and that the social rights and institutions of those countries influence integration.

We exploit two Norwegian parental leave reforms to investigate their effects on adolescents' household work. The main reform increased the parental leave time by 7 weeks, 4 of which were reserved for the father, while the second reform raised only the general parental leave time by 3 weeks. We find a robust and substantial effect of the main reform implying that adolescent girls born immediately after the reform are less likely to do household work. By analyzing the two parental leave reforms together, we show that the father quota drives the results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2015, the number of people seeking asylum in Europe skyrocketed. However, asylum applications were mainly concentrated in a few destination countries such as Germany, Austria, or Sweden. After the so-called EU-Turkey deal, asylum rates quickly dropped in subsequent years. I examine how these developments affected public opinion from both a static and a dynamic comparative perspective. The rapid and largely unpredicted rise in refugee numbers and their prominence in public debates make demographic changes potent drivers of out-group hostility. The analysis of data from over 50,000 individuals in 22 countries contained in the seventh and eighth waves of the European Social Survey shows that attitudes toward refugees do not simply follow trends in asylum applications. Significantly lowering refugee numbers, hence, did not counter anti-refugee sentiments in the European public. Based on intra-country variation over time, the model rather predicts an increase in negative attitudes during times of considerable demographic shifts. Deeper analyses reveal that this effect is stronger for conservative Europeans as well as for those who distrust EU-politics. Moreover, while a general willingness to help is associated with more openness toward refugees, actually experiencing foreigner inflow diminishes this link, suggesting limitations of humanitarian concerns. Results are stable across various modelling and sample choices and not driven by individual countries. In sum, these findings demonstrate the importance of temporal dynamics for the formation of attitudes toward refugees in contemporary Europe and point to potentially polarizing effects of immigration along ideological lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that women have surpassed men in educational attainment. The potential effect of educational institutional structures on the “rise of women” has largely been overlooked. In particular, the age of first selection into distinct educational tracks seems important, as the female-favorable gap in educational performance has been shown to widen during the high school years. Using microdata from the European Social Survey and data on tracking age reforms for 21 European countries from 1929 to 2000, we find that reforms promoting later tracking have particularly benefited girls’ years of education, net of other influential factors (gender-ideological climate and demand on the labor market). This finding shows that the rise of women is not homogeneous across institutional contexts: some educational systems are more supportive of the enhancement of women’s education than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-five years after the fall of the communist regimes, the gender gap in employment varies widely across Central and Eastern Europe. This study examines the societal-level reasons for this variation and assesses the impact of different dimensions of neoliberally minded "economic development" strategies on gender inequality. We focus on Central and Eastern Europe, a segment of the world not typically addressed in the literature on gender and development. We rely on the 2008 and 2012 waves of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey as well as multiple macro-level data sources to analyze the association between development indicators, labor market context, social policy arrangements, and the gender employment gap. We find that typical growth indicators, global market integration, and social policy arrangements are not at all or only weakly associated with the gender employment gap in this region. Instead, the labor market context, specifically the degree of segregation and the size of the public and service sectors, are more important for shaping women's labor market opportunities relative to men's at both time points. Our findings contribute to the literature on the trade-offs between job segregation and aspects of gender inequality as well as to ongoing debates within the field of "gender and development" by pointing out important variations across regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important explanation for immigrants' wage disadvantage is that human capital acquired in the country of origin is not fully transferable to the country of destination. Credentialing theories, on the other hand, argue that being educated abroad results in lower wages because foreign degrees are weaker signals to employers and might impede formal access to occupations. In this study, we use the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012 (PIAAC) data and include--besides educational degrees--measures of cognitive, non-cognitive, and job-specific skills to explain wages. In our analysis of 11 European countries, we find robust evidence that having a non-Western foreign degree is associated with lower wages. After accounting for different types of skills, the wage penalty associated with having a foreign degree remains substantial, as skills explain only a third of the place of education effect. This finding is in line with the argument that being educated abroad results in lower wages because of not only the limited transferability of skills, but also the limited transferability of degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the impact of media coverage of protest on issue attention in parliament (questions) in six Western European countries. Integrating several data sets on protest, media, and political agendas, we demonstrate that media coverage of protest affects parliamentary agendas: the more media attention protest on an issue receives, the more parliamentary questions on that issue are asked. The relationship, however, is mediated by the issue agenda of mass media more generally, attesting to an indirect rather than a direct effect. Additionally, the effect of media-covered protests on the general media agenda is moderated by the political system and is larger in majoritarian countries than in countries with a consensus democracy. This shows the importance of political opportunity structures for the agenda-setting impact of protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accommodation of Muslim minorities in European countries has sparked controversies over the extension of religious rights. Previous research has mostly studied public institutions and debates. But which attitudes toward religious rights do Europeans hold and how can we explain these attitudes? To approach this question, we draw on the novel EURISLAM data set, which allows us for the first time to investigate attitudes of both Muslim minorities and Christian natives in six Western European countries. To explain attitudes, we test the explanatory power of religiosity at the individual level and state-church regimes in both destination and origin countries at the macro level. Overall, Muslims, especially religious Muslims, are more supportive of religious rights than natives. However, we also find that religious natives approve to a greater extent of out-group rights than non-religious natives. We argue that these findings have to be interpreted in light of asymmetric power relationships: Muslim minorities can hardly deny the rights of Christians, as this would undermine their own claims. Similarly, religious natives increasingly constitute a minority in secular societies and may therefore see Muslims as allies in order to strengthen the position of religion in Western Europe. The higher approval of religious individuals challenges the theory on out-group threat, which would lead us to expect that religious individuals are more reluctant to embrace out-group rights. Finally, state-church regimes in the destination countries play a minor role, while the degree of religiosity in the origin countries has an important impact on individual attitudes toward religious rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial share of Europe's population consists of immigrants and the children of immigrants. Using European Social Survey data, this study examines whether the gender-egalitarian values of immigrants are shaped by the gender relations in their origin country and whether they adapt their values to the standards of their residence country. The analyses show that immigrants originating from countries with very inegalitarian gender relations support gender equality less than members of mainstream society. However, immigrants adapt their gender ideology to the standards of their residence country, and the origin context loses force over time. Both acculturation within the first generation and acculturation across the generations play a role; but women tend to “assimilate” within the first generation and more thoroughly than men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite ample research on behavioral aspects of the transition to adulthood, few comparative studies have focused on “subjective” facets. Using data from the European Social Survey, we probe similarities and differences in conceptions of adulthood for men and women in twenty-five European countries. We examine perceptions of the age of adulthood and the importance of four social markers (leaving home, having a full-time job, living with a partner or spouse, and becoming a parent). Results reveal a shared European idea about age, with men consistently reaching adulthood later than women. The significance of various markers, however, shows greater heterogeneity across nations. Country differences go beyond welfare state classification and underscore the importance of value systems. Conceptions for men and women are surprisingly similar. While economic independence matters more for men's lives, it is nonetheless salient for women. Even more, family formation now seems a unisex organizer of the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United States' black/white health gap is an important consequence of racial inequality. The gap is large, shows little signs of declining, and explanations have been limited by lack of theory and data. A new direction that offers potential for theoretical development is a focus on black immigrants, a group that shares the same racial status as U.S.-born blacks but experiences significantly better health. Using new data on the 2000-2002 National Health Interview Surveys, we disaggregate black immigrants by region of birth and develop a thesis that emphasizes the interplay of selectivity and racial context of origin for understanding health disparities among black Americans, namely that majority white contexts have deleterious health effects. The results indicate that grouping together foreign-born blacks conceals important health differentials among this population. Compared to U.S.-born blacks, black immigrants from minority white (Africa, South America) and racially mixed (West Indies) regions have superior health, while those from majority white (Europe) regions fare no better. A similar gradient exists among black immigrants, with Africans faring the best, followed by South Americans, then West Indians, with European blacks having the poorest health. Though these findings are not the definitive test of our theory, they are suggestive. They point us to understanding the mechanisms in the United States -- racial context -- that worsen the health and well being of black Americans, foreign-and native-born alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered a powerful catalyst in market transition. However, FDI flows vary greatly across Central and East European transition countries. I compare and contrast current approaches, which consider country characteristics as determinants of FDI, with a relational approach that emphasizes institutional, political, economic, and cultural connections between investor and host countries. Regression analyses of FDI flows in country dyads provide little evidence for the effects of country characteristics. Political, migration, trade, and cultural relations between investors and hosts have strong positive effects on FDI flows, and they add considerably to the proportion of the explained cross-national variance. These findings highlight the utility of a relational understanding of macroeconomic processes, as well as the importance of examining how substantively different social relations shape economic exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the new paradigm in the sociology of religion, known commonly as the "supply-side" or "rational choice" perspective, leading towards a plausible general theory? At this point, the answer remains dependent upon how one interprets current deviations from the paradigm's predictions. This article investigates two cases in postcommunist Europe, Poland and East Germany, which appear to contradict a simple core hypothesis of the new paradigm. We argue that these anomalous cases are opportunities to examine and potentially extend the explanatory range of the new paradigm. Ultimately, we conclude that these cases can be shown through closer analysis to fit with the underlying logic of the new paradigm and thereby argue for the theory's continued evaluation and augmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]