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This paper explores the gender gap in time allocation in European countries, offering a comparison of the 2000s and the 2010s, along with an explanation of the documented gender gaps, based on social norms and institutional factors. The results show that the gender gap in both paid and unpaid work has decreased in most countries, but with a significant level of cross-country heterogeneity in the size of the gender gaps. More traditional social norms are related to greater gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work, while countries with better family-friendly policies and a greater representation of women in politics and in the labour market exhibit smaller gender inequalities. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of gender gaps in Europe, and attempts to monitor the progress towards the elimination of gender inequalities. Despite that some degree of gender convergence in paid and unpaid work has taken place, there remain inequalities in the distribution of labour in European countries, and possible solutions may be related to social norms and family-friendly policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about the quality of housing feature prominently in academic and policy discussion on housing, yet there is little agreement about how housing deprivation should be measured or monitored. In empirical studies, measures of housing deprivation are typically examined for one of two purposes—either to compare incidences of housing quality problems for different groups, which typically leads to an examination of performance of different measures of housing deprivation, or as dependent variables to examine competing theories about what explains cross-national variation in such problems, which typically ignores these measurement considerations. Our paper seeks to analyse measurement and theory jointly, focussing in particular on the EU's severe housing deprivation measure, and its subcomponents—overcrowding and housing conditions problems. In descriptive analysis, we show that the two components of the severe housing deprivation measure are weakly related and pattern differently across nations and that the aggregation rule of the main measure has a substantial influence on observed incidences of this problem. We subsequently construct multi-level regression-based models and demonstrate that the two components have quite different determinants. Our paper has implications for the measurement of severe housing deprivation in Europe, for theories that seek to account for differences in housing outcomes, and for policy that seeks to tackle housing deprivation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association of opportunity and choice enhancing societal conditions and perceived autonomy with life satisfaction in Europe. Building on the capability approach, I investigate whether the positive effects of six basic functionings—safety, friendship, health, financial security, leisure, and respect—on people's life satisfaction are weaker when people have more opportunity and choice. This paper addresses two main questions: (1) Are people more satisfied with their life when they have more opportunity and choice? (2) Do basic functionings play a smaller role for life satisfaction in societies that enable more opportunity and choice and for individuals with more perceived autonomy? The analyses are based on the European Quality of Life Survey (2016), covering 36,460 individuals in 33 European countries and using multilevel linear regressions. My study finds that both choice and opportunity enhancing societal conditions and individual's perceived autonomy are positively associated with on life satisfaction. Further, all six basic functionings are conducive to individual life satisfaction. The positive effects of health, financial security, respect, and friendship are reduced when people experience a great deal of autonomy over their lives. Societal conditions that provide people with more opportunity and choice further lower the positive effects of financial security, leisure, respect, and safety on individual life satisfaction. This corroborates the importance the capability approach attributes to individual opportunities and freedom of choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity is the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire foods in socially acceptable ways. The study presents a comparison of the principal determinants of individual food insecurity in Europe and other Continents, with particular regard to gender, since the literature clearly states the importance of women in the administration of food in the household. The study of gender related differences in food insecurity is particularly important in Europe, since women experience food insecurity at a larger extent than men, but with a variability related to the geographical distribution and with complex relationships with economic and social drivers. Using a large international sample of individual level data, that allows the analysis for developed Countries for the first time, and the first experiential measure of food insecurity comparable at the global level, the paper analyses the principal determinants of gender differences in food insecurity. In order to verify if women's vulnerability in food insecurity is moderated by specific factors, the modelling approach allows gender to vary by education, poverty, place of residence. The results suggest that the driver that could most mitigate women disadvantage is education: people with a university degree present a lower probability of experiencing food insecurity, both for men and for women. On the contrary, familial characteristics, such as the number of children in the household, present a higher impact on women's food insecurity than on men's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is renewed interest in earnings differentials between social classes, the contribution of social class to overall earnings inequality across countries and net of compositional effects remains largely uncharted territory. This paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions to assess earnings differentials between social classes (as measured by ESeC) and the role of between-class inequality in overall earnings inequality across 30 European countries. We find that there is substantial variation in earnings differences between social classes across countries. Countries with higher levels of between-class inequality tend to display higher levels of overall earnings inequality, but this relationship is far from perfect. Even with highly aggregated class measures, between-class inequality accounts for a non-negligible share of total earnings inequality (between 15 and 25% in most countries). Controlling for observed between-class differences in composition shows that these account for much of the observed between-class earnings inequality, while in most countries between-class differences in returns to observed compositional variables do not play a major role. In all these respects we find considerable variation across countries, implying that both the size of between-class differences in earnings and the primary mechanisms that produce these class differences vary substantially between European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population ageing, together with the negative effects of the recent economic and financial crisis that some European countries are still facing, have threatened the sustainability of public pension systems. In this context, voluntary private pensions have emerged as the most feasible alternative to supplement the minimum provided by Social Security Systems; however, this financial product does not enjoy its expected popularity. A potential explanation of this reality might be due to the fact that European countries are far from being homogeneous, nor their pensions systems. Therefore, any policy geared toward improving financial retirement planning should take into account these potential differences. As a first approach to their analysis, this paper proposes the existence of four different ‘social models’ in Europe -namely, Continental, Mediterranean, Nordic and Transitional-. Overall, empirical evidence confirmed the significant influence of country’ ‘social model’ on the decision to invest in retirement accounts on a sample of 31,468 individuals in 2013. It was also proved that this decision is positively related to age, household income and wealth, higher levels of formal education, job situation, good health status, and long-term planning horizons; and negatively related to age squared, household size or financial risk aversion. In short, future policies and reforms regarding private pensions should not only take into account the existence of individual differences among Europeans, but also the existence of differences depending on institutional and cultural country factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an index to measure the possibilities individuals have to balance their work and life spheres. Using data for 26 European countries, and principal components analysis, we compute the National Work-Life Balance Index© as a combination of five dimensions: Time/Schedule, Work, Family, Health, and Policy. We find that Northern and Central European countries, such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden have a higher value of the National Work-Life Balance Index©, compared to Southern and Western European countries, such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, and Bulgaria. These results are consistent with existing literature showing that there is a lower proportion of individuals reporting difficulty balancing their work and household responsibilities in Northern countries, compared to other European countries. To the extent that international data becomes comparable, the National Work-Life Balance Index© may help to guide public policies aimed at improving the work-life balance of individuals in countries that are comparatively worse off in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the annual time series and the average annual growth rate of the European Gender Equality Index, which was proposed by Bericat (Soc Indic Res 108:1-28, ), for the EU and its 27 member countries for the period 2000-2011. The paper also reports the time series and average annual growth rate for each of the three subdimensions of gender equality-education, work, and power-and the underlying indicators for each subdimension for EU as a whole. The calculated index shows that in the period 2000-2011, overall gender equality, equality in education, work, and power in the EU has been improving at a rate of 1.7, 0.92, 0.65, and 3.48 % per year, respectively. By 2011, overall gender equality, and equality in education, work, and power has reached 58.3, 77.4, 60.9, and 42.7, respectively. In short, this paper offers the scientific community, as well as those that design and implement public policies, a robust, valid and precise synthetic description of the current situation and evolution, from 2000 to 2011, of structural gender equality in European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aftermath of the Global Financial and Economic Crisis of 2007/2008 turned out as a veritable “stress test” for European welfare states. Aiming to stabilize citizens’ living conditions and mitigate socio-economic hardship, European governments have engaged in active crisis management. Yet, the protective capacities of European welfare states vary, as does individuals’ exposure to crisis-induced social risks. Hence, the crisis has impacted countries and the members of different social classes unequally. Against this backdrop, this paper asks how Europeans’ perceptions of the personal impact of the crisis are associated with their welfare attitudes, focusing on variations between social classes and across nations. Using cross-sectional Eurobarometer survey data from 2010 for 27 European countries, I find that perceived crisis impact is associated with greater support for welfare state responsibility and redistribution. However, this association is not homogeneous but moderated by an individual’s class position as well as national economic conditions and social spending levels. More specifically, on the individual level, perceived crisis impact is associated with more favourable welfare attitudes not only among its traditional supporters—such as the working class or the unemployed—but also among its traditional opponents, notably the self-employed. Furthermore, where social spending is higher, welfare state support is less strongly related to perceived crisis impact, suggesting that more encompassing welfare states mitigate the subjective impacts of the crisis. However, redistribution appears to be slightly more contested between those affected and those not affected by the crisis under better economic conditions. Given the challenges facing welfare states across Europe, it remains to be seen how stable a basis of popular support can be formed on these grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on immigrants’ assimilation is widespread both in the U.S. and Europe. While it has been extensively studied how immigrants fare compared to natives on socio-economic indicators, few studies have focussed on immigrants’ perception of their position. In this paper we focus on comparing life satisfaction of immigrants and natives across Europe and on the role of social embeddedness. Using data from the first six rounds (2002-2012) of the European Social Survey, a repeated cross-sectional survey, we find that life satisfaction among immigrants is lower than among natives even though differences diminish over generations. For first generation immigrants part of the life satisfaction gap is explained by the lower level of social embeddedness they have compared to natives. We also find that social embeddedness is a key explanatory factor for life satisfaction for both immigrants and natives. For two out of the three indicators of social embeddedness that we consider we however find different patterns of association with life satisfaction for immigrants compared to natives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing interest among researchers in the effects of social capital on the health of older adults. One of the key policy question for an ageing population concerns how do we identify the factors that influence health. Very recently, an increasing interest on social capital as a key determinant for health has developed and, surprisingly, not much is known for the European population. This paper analyzes the association between social capital and self-perceived health among older adults in Europe using a mixed effects logistic model. Social capital is considered in its two components-bonding and bridging-in order to understand if the relations inside or outside an individual inner circle have a different association with health. Our results give empirical support to the role of individual social capital in preventing a poor self-perceived health. This means that social capital, especially the bridging component of it, can be one of the key factors of ageing in good health and should be fostered by policy makers in order to give an answer to one of the most compelling challenge of our century: population ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effects of different dimensions of religiosity and trust on religious and racial prejudice in Europe. The sample is based on 37 European countries that are current or potential members of the European Union (EU). Using multi-level logistic regression modeling and the latest wave from the European Values Study data, we test the effects of both individual and country-level variables. Our results suggest that religious particularism is correlated with more religious and racial prejudice. Doctrinal belief and individual spirituality are both correlated with less religious prejudice only. Nonreligious individuals have the highest religious prejudice compared to members of religious denominations. Individual and country-level generalized trust, as well as trust in the EU, are all negatively correlated with religious and racial prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests an under-representation of women among teleworkers before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we know little about whether such a gender gap was substantial, and whether it could be explained by occupational gender segregation. We explore whether a gender gap in regularly teleworking existed in the EU-28 and analyse its possible constituents, drawing on data from the European Working Conditions Survey 2015. To form a group of potential teleworkers, the analytical sample was restricted to employees who made use of information and communication technology (N ≈ 16,000). Country fixed effects regression and multilevel models were applied. The results show that women were under-represented among teleworkers compared to men, also when occupational gender segregation is taken into account; the remaining gender gap in telework is estimated at 10%. For women, working part-time and working in the private sector was associated with lower incidences of telework, but not for men. Country characteristics explain a small but significant share of telework incidence. In countries that rank high on the Gender Equality Index and have a large public sector, telework was widespread, whereas it was less present in countries with higher shares of women in the fields of science and engineering. The findings support the view that the gender gap in teleworking from home is a matter of historically grown gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has suggested that there is a 'gender paradox' associated with life satisfaction and depression: women are said to have higher levels of life satisfaction on average but also a higher likelihood of experiencing depression. That finding comes from quantitative analyses that include socio-demographic control variables. In this article I show that the inclusion of these control variables leads to biased results. In general, controls are to be selected on the basis that they are antecedents of the focal independent variable (as well as the dependent variable). When the focal independent variable is gender (or, more precisely, sex), no controls are required: there are no determinants of life satisfaction that also determine someone's sex. If we include socio-demographic controls, we get biased results – because the controls themselves are affected by sex. More precisely: if we include controls (e.g. for income) to discern the difference between women's and men's life satisfaction, we get a result that fails to reflect the way women experience specific disadvantages (e.g. lower income) that contribute to lower life satisfaction. The same points apply to an analysis of depression. In a properly specified model (using data from the European Social Survey), there is no difference between women's and men's life satisfaction – so, there is no paradox with respect to depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the direction of the relationship between civic participation and well-being has evidenced that civic participation is a promoter of well-being among older adults in Europe. Accordingly, the objective of the present study is to identify and analyze the differences between European welfare systems regarding both civic participation and well-being. For this purpose, a logistic multilevel regression analysis was performed as an empirical strategy, using the cross-sectional data from the 9 waves of the European Social Survey (2002–2018). Significant differences in well-being were observed, with Anglo-Saxon elders being the healthiest, and the Nordic the happiest and most satisfied with their lives. In contrast, Eastern European seniors reported the lowest levels of well-being. Also, Nordic countries are the most civically engaged, followed by the Continental and Anglo-Saxon, while Mediterranean and Eastern countries engage the least. However, the impact of civic participation on well-being is strongest for the Mediterranean countries, while its impact on satisfaction and happiness is weakest for the Nordic countries. The 3 models of the multilevel analysis indicate that civic participation has a positive impact on health, happiness and life satisfaction, and that this effect is quite robust. Also, by adding country-level macro variables to the model, it is possible to reduce the random effects and hence to better explain these international differences. Concisely, the impact of civic participation on the well-being of the elderly differs across nations and should therefore be considered by policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to expand our knowledge about the factors that condition late-life loneliness from a longitudinal perspective. We assess the long-term relationship between education, late-life loneliness and family trajectories in terms of the role of partnership and motherhood, as well as their timing for older women. We set two initial hypotheses: (1) family trajectory has a mediating effect and (2) education has a selection effect. Cross-sectional and retrospective data are drawn from the three waves of the SHARE survey (3rd, 5th and 7th waves), selecting a subsample of women aged 65 and over from 11 European countries (N = 10,615). After distinguishing eight different family trajectories by carrying out a Sequence Analysis, the Karlson-Holm-Breen method is used to assess the mediator effect of family trajectory on the relationship between education and loneliness. Multinomial analysis is used to explore whether the probability of different family trajectories of older European women is defined by their level of education. Our results show that education has a selection effect on family trajectories: a higher educational level increases the probability of a non-standardised family trajectory. Significant results of the mediator effect of family trajectory are however only observed for women with medium-level education, as being single and childless at older ages increases the probability of loneliness among these women. Adopting a life-course perspective has permitted us to introduce the longitudinal dimensions of life events, education and family trajectories to the study of feelings of loneliness among women in old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European population is aging and their declining capacity makes older Europeans more dependent on the availability of care. Male and female health needs at older ages are different, yet there are contradictory results on the study of gender inequalities in health among the older European population. The aim of this article is twofold: first, we study whether there is a general gender health gap at older ages across Europe. Secondly, we analyze the existence of an increasing or decreasing universal association between the gender health gap and age among the older European population or whether, by contrast, this depends on the type of welfare state. To achieve these goals, we use data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for respondents aged 50 and over in 2015, and we carry out several multilevel random intercept logistic regressions for European countries. Our results show that when we split European countries into groups according to the type of welfare state, we only find a significant gender health gap in older people in Southern and Social Democratic countries. Some differences have been found in the links between the gender health gap and age among European countries. Old women report worse health than men at all ages in Southern countries while in Social Democratic states it is only true for women aged 80 and over. In Bismarckian states there are barely any gender differences, while the gender health gap has no clearly defined bias. Between the ages of 60 and 79, men from Eastern European countries report poorer health, while after 80 it is women who report poorer health. In general, we found the widest gender inequalities in health for the oldest population group, especially in Southern and Eastern European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-national survey data shows that for a significant share of European citizens, corruption is acceptable. Notwithstanding the importance of prior knowledge on corruption extension and experience, research has made little progress in exploring why people condone it, especially in unsuspicious countries, with effective institutions and stable democratic rules and processes. The present study examines this gap in the literature by assessing the European Values Study (EVS) and the Special Eurobarometer (EB) attempts at measuring 'Tolerance towards Corruption' (TtC) in OECD countries in Europe during the same period (2017–2019). In the end, measurements proved to be constrained by the limited number of questions/items that try to capture TtC, which gave room to conclude that: (a) EVS and EB approaches do not measure the same TtC. The first measures it through social transgressions not exclusively related to corruption, while the second measures the willingness to accept a public-office corruption when dealing with the public sphere. (b) Lower ages combined with individual preferences/perceptions of less satisfaction with life, widespread corruption, and prior experiences with corruption proved to be more relevant to explain TtC, regardless of the country in which individuals were surveyed. (c) The type of TtC citizens display in advanced democracies proved to be mainly contingent on their age and on the way they interpret the extension of corruption and the prior contact they had with a public-office corruption in a given society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring and comparing levels of violence against women across individuals or countries are controversial exercises, and yet they remain essential to understanding the phenomenon. We develop a scale of severity of violence against women based on fuzzy set theory. The scale can be used to derive fuzzy indexes of violence which account for the prevalence, frequency and severity of violence. Unlike existing alternatives, however, the scale that we propose is based on objective information rather than subjective assessment; it is parsimonious in terms of the amount of information that it requires; and it is less vulnerable to risks of cultural bias. We exploit our scale to unravel a puzzle which arises from the largest survey of violence against women in Europe to date, namely that some of the more gender equal countries record higher prevalence rates for violence from intimate partners. We show that the puzzle is resolved once violence is weighted by severity using our scale instead of being measured by simple prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides new evidence about the effects of income on population health. To do so, our first research question controls for the absolute income hypothesis: Has the recent deterioration of individual income had as a result a lower health status in population across European countries? We assume, as the bulk of the associated studies have found, that the lower the income of an individual, the lower his/her health status. Our second research objective is to examine the validity of the relative income hypothesis. To shed light on this issue, we test two different questions: What is the relationship between an individual's health status and a country's wealth and how self-rated health is associated with the degree of income inequality in a society? We expect that the population in wealthier countries report higher health status and individuals who live in countries with higher income inequalities report lower health status. By employing a multilevel binomial model and treating data from the latest European Social Survey Round 8 (2016/2017) from 23 countries in Europe, we have found strong evidence in favor of the above-mentioned hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the development of two forms of public spending on families, as well as their role for child poverty in 22 European countries during the period 2006–2015. It uses aggregated data on child poverty from Eurostat and data relating to public spending on families from the OECD SOCX database. It analyses the association between child poverty and public family spending on cash benefits and in-kind benefits, respectively. The findings show a stable growth in the GDP-related and real levels of spending on both cash benefits and benefits in kind, although spending on cash benefits have been more exposed to cost containment than spending on inkind benefits. Furthermore, spending on benefits in kind was found to be more efficient for curbing child poverty than spending on cash benefits, even after controlling for unemployment, family structure, the general standard of living, as well as welfare institutional configurations. However, the efficiency of public family spending declined over the studied period. Moreover, the relative significance of public family spending for child poverty, in comparison to structural factors (such as unemployment), varied according to which spending measure that was used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality of Opportunity (IO) refers to that inequality stemming from factors, called circumstances, beyond the scope of individual responsibility, such as gender, race, place of birth or socioeconomic background. In general, circumstances do not directly convert into future individual's income. Indeed, different circumstances in childhood lead to different levels of education and different occupational categories which, in turn, contribute to generate divergent levels of income during adulthood. Using the Intergenerational Transmission modules in 2005 and 2011 from the EU-SILC, we estimate the importance of attained education and occupational category as mediating channels in the generation of IO in 26 European countries. We find that the attained level of education channels up to 30% of total IO, with important differences across Europe. Once attained education is taken into account, occupation explains less than 5% of IO in most countries. Moreover, the importance of education as a channel for IO is negatively correlated both with the share of the population that attains tertiary levels of education and with the importance of government expenditure in education relative to GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social capital affects many social and economic outcomes, it is important to monitor its changes over time. This study uses WVS-EVS integrated data (1990-2012) to describe the trends of 8 proxies of social capital in 30 Western and Eastern European countries. We found positive trends of trust in others, confidence in public services, and in armed forces; negative trends of participation in groups and associations, and of confidence in political institutions; mixed trends of civic cooperation, and of confidence in religious and empowering institutions. We also found evidence that over time the differences in social capital among European countries predominantly increased ( $$\sigma$$ -convergence). These differences are not explained by differences in the initial stocks of social capital ( $$\beta$$ -convergence). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become widely accepted that focusing exclusively on income growth may lead to a too narrow-sighted measure of changes in well-being. People care about other dimensions of life, such as their health, employment, social interactions and personal safety. Moreover, an exclusive focus on income growth remains blind to the distribution of income and well-being in the society. We propose therefore a set of five principles for a richer measure of well-being. In particular, we advocate the use of a measure based on 'equivalent incomes', which satisfies these principles. We discuss and illustrate how this equivalent income approach can be implemented in Europe, using the ESS data for 2008 and 2010. We find that introducing inequality aversion and including other dimensions in the analysis leads to a remarkably different perspective on the growth of well-being in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise in non-standard employment inspired many scholars to study the social consequences of these new employment forms. Most research focusses on individuals working non-standard. With the increase in dual earnership, however, we need a household perspective. This study therefore develops the notion of household non-standard employment and applies a polarisation index to examine the distribution of non-standard work over dual earner couples. This polarisation index compares the actual rate of household non-standard employment with a counterfactual rate when non-standard employment would be randomly distributed over households. Drawing on EU-SILC 2011, we define non-standard workers as individuals who worked during the previous year, but not full-year full-time. The results indicate that the levels of polarisation vary considerably across countries. Because especially women do not work full-time, polarisation is highly negative since it is less likely to find clustering of non-standard work within households. This pattern is dominant in Continental European countries, but also observable in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon countries. On the other hand, in Eastern and Southern European countries, non-standard employment is concentrated in some households, mainly because of the inability of its members to work full-year. Common characteristics of household members known to be associated with non-standard employment, like age and education, explain little of the levels of non-standard employment polarisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]