Showing papers in "European Sociological Review in 2019"

Why You Should Always Include a Random Slope for the Lower-Level Variable Involved in a Cross-Level Interaction

Abstract: Mixed-effects multilevel models are often used to investigate cross-level interactions, a specific type of context effect that may be understood as an upper-level variable moderating the association between a lower-level predictor and the outcome We argue that multilevel models involving cross-level interactions should always include random slopes on the lower-level components of those interactions Failure to do so will usually result in severely anti-conservative statistical inference We illustrate the problem with extensive Monte Carlo simulations and examine its practical relevance by studying 30 prototypical cross-level interactions with European Social Survey data for 28 countries In these empirical applications, introducing a random slope term reduces the absolute t-ratio of the cross-level interaction term by 31 per cent or more in three quarters of cases, with an average reduction of 42 per cent Many practitioners seem to be unaware of these issues Roughly half of the cross-level interaction estimates published in the European Sociological Review between 2011 and 2016 are based on models that omit the crucial random slope term Detailed analysis of the associated test statistics suggests that many of the estimates would not reach conventional thresholds for statistical significance in correctly specified models that include the random slope This raises the question how much robust evidence of cross-level interactions sociology has actually produced over the past decades

Educational Systems and Gender Differences in Reading: A Comparative Multilevel Analysis

Abstract: Girls have a substantial advantage over boys in terms of reading performance throughout all OECD countries. This paper investigates whether the structure of a country's educational system is related to this gender inequality in reading performance. We assess whether standardization of educational curricula and the age at which students are selected into educational tracks affect boys’ and girls’ reading performance differently. To test our hypotheses, we employ data from all six Programme for International Student Achievement waves enriched with contextual information on countries’ educational systems (N = 1,425,356). Results show that in country-years with more standardized curricula overall reading performance is lower and the association between standardization and reading performance is more negative for boys than for girls. In counties with educational systems in which students are selected into educational tracks at later ages, gender differences in reading are larger because girls benefit more from late selection. These results indicate that educational policies at the country level are related not only to the reading performance of all students, but also to the underperformance of boys in reading.

The Social Stratification of Choice in the Transition to Adulthood

Abstract: The occurrence and timing of major demographic decisions in the transition to adulthood is strongly stratified, with young adults with a high socio-economic status (SES) background usually experiencing many of these events later than young adults with a low SES background. To explain this social stratification, we outline a theoretical framework in which social stratification affects choice in the transition to adulthood through three, potentially reinforcing, pathways: stratified socialization, stratified agency, and stratified opportunity. We test our framework against longitudinal data from two waves of the Generations and Gender Surveys for Austria, Bulgaria, and France. We find evidence for the importance of all three pathways. Furthermore, processes differ little by gender, age and country context.

Do changes in material circumstances drive support for populist radical parties? Panel data evidence from the Netherlands during the Great Recession, 2007–2015

Abstract: Political developments since the 2008 financial crisis have sparked renewed interest in the electoral implications of economic downturns. Research describes a correlation between adverse economic conditions and support for radical parties campaigning on the populist promise to retake the country from a corrupt elite. But does the success of radical parties following economic crises rely on people who are directly affected? To answer this question, we examine whether individual-level changes in economic circumstances drive support for radical parties across the ideological divide. Analysing eight waves of panel data collected in the Netherlands, before, during, and after the Great Recession (2007-2015), we demonstrate that people who experienced an income loss became more supportive of the radical left but not of the radical right. Looking at these parties' core concerns, we find that income loss increased support for income redistribution championed by the radical left, but less so for the anti-immigration policies championed by the radical right. Our study establishes more directly than extant research the micro-foundations of support for radical parties across the ideological divide.

The Gender Wage Gap Opens Long before Motherhood. Panel Evidence on Early Careers in Switzerland

Abstract: According to a popular argument in economics, the gender wage gap persists not because of employer discrimination against women, but because of the differential investment of fathers and mothers into paid work and the household. We test this argument by comparing the evolution of wages between men and women before the onset of family formation and gendered household specialization. We use a cohort study of young adults for Switzerland (TREE 2000–2014) and match the two sexes on their intellectual ability and educational attainment before they enter the labour market. We then use the ensuing survey waves to account for human capital and job characteristics as well as for values towards work and family. We replicate our analysis with a second panel study of Swiss graduate students. We find in both cohort studies an unexplained gender wage gap of between 3 to 6 percent in favour of men. This result suggests that young women earn lower wages than young men with the same productive characteristics long before they have children. Translated into annual wages, this means that young women lose out on half a monthly wage each year in comparison to young men.

Labour Market Effects of General and Vocational Education over the Life-Cycle and across Time: Accounting for Age, Period, and Cohort Effects

Abstract: A recent literature argues that the labour market returns to vocational education vary over the life cycle. Graduates with an occupation-specific educational degree have a smooth transition into the labour market but experience difficulties later in their career when their specific skills become obsolete. This life course penalty to vocational education is expected to be particularly strong in periods of rapid technological change. Existing literature has mostly studied this topic from the perspective of age effects but focused less on cohort and period effects. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent lower returns to vocational education in the late career vary across time periods. Using Labour Force Survey data for the Netherlands (1996–2012) we find that having a more occupation-specific educational degree increases the likelihood of being employed in early life and lowers the average job status. This initial advantage of a higher employment probability declines with age, and the disadvantage in job status increases as workers grow older. We find that these life-cycle effects have not, or only marginally, changed over time.

Labour Market Returns to Graduates’ International Experience: Exploring Cross-Country Variation in Europe

Abstract: The potential benefits of increased international experience abound, ranging from enriching cultural understanding to an improvement of language skills and intercultural competence. At the same time, empirical evidence is mixed, particularly with regards to how well international experience translates into individual returns on the labour market. This article examines the association between studying abroad and early labour market outcomes in a comparative perspective aiming to shed light on why labour market returns differ across countries. We expect labour market returns to vary with specific country characteristics such as demand for international experience and competition among graduates at labour market entry. In our empirical analyses, we use data from 13 European countries that provide information on graduates’ early labour market outcomes. We find a large variation in the impact of studying abroad on both wages and attaining a higher service class position. Generally, the labour market returns to international experience are larger in countries in Eastern and Southern Europe with poorer university quality, higher graduate unemployment, and fewer students abroad.

Social Influence or Rational Choice? Two Models and Their Contribution to Explaining Class Differentials in Student Educational Aspirations

Abstract: Both the Wisconsin model of status attainment (WIM) and rational choice theory (RCT) indicate that social class differentials in student educational aspirations are partially determined by academic performance. Conditional on performance, the WIM predicts that social influence mechanisms explain the remaining class differentials, whereas RCT maintains that rational calculus factors provide the explanation. Both theories have rarely been compared directly using large-scale empirical data. Moreover, the appropriateness of these models has been questioned for highly stratified and selective educational systems such as Germany’s. In this article, we analyse the extent to which the WIM and RCT can explain the relationship between students’ social class origins and their educational aspirations. We use data from the National Educational Panel Study and analysed the aspirations of 4,896 ninth-graders in German schools along with data about their school performance, social class positions, social influences, and rational choice factors. Our mixed logit models largely confirm that both social influences and rational choice factors mediate class differentials. Five factors contribute the most: parents’ expectations, friends’ aspirations, the motive of status maintenance, costs, and perceived probability of success. This research confirms that both the WIM and RCT can each independently explain aspirations and class differentials in aspirations.

Signals, Educational Decision-Making, and Inequality

Abstract: We propose a model of educational decision-making based on rational choice theory in which students use signals about academic ability to make inference about the costs and benefits of different ed ...

How Do Women and Men Use Extra Time? Housework and Childcare after the French 35-Hour Workweek Regulation

Abstract: This paper analyses how and when men and women devote their extra time to childcare and housework by exploiting an exogenous shock in scheduling: the partial implementation of the 35-hour workweek reform in France. Using propensity score matching and the most recent time use survey (INSEE, 2010), we show that time reallocations differ by gender and day of the week. While men dedicate their extra time to performing more housework on weekdays in the form of mainly time-flexible tasks such as repairs or shopping, they do less on weekends. This shift from weekends to weekdays is not observed for women who perform day-to-day tasks that are less transferable. Women spend more time on childcare and reduce multitasking. Overall, task specialization by gender is more pronounced, and this gendered use of similar extra time illustrates that time allocation is not only a question of time availability. In particular, men and women ‘do gender’ at weekends, when performing tasks is more visible to others.

The Individual in Context(s): Research Potentials of the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) in Sociology

Abstract: The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study is a rich resource for sociologists, mainly because it offers direct measures of respondents’ contexts. The SOEP data provide (i) information retrieved from individuals themselves, (ii) direct information retrieved from their parents, partners, and organizations, (iii) prospectively collected information on past characteristics, and (iv) regional and spatial identifiers allowing researchers to link the data with regional-level characteristics. As the study has been in the field since 1984, the data also reflect variation in institutional and structural settings over time. Regular refreshment samples provide options to identify cohort effects. Together, these features allow multi-layered contextual designs that offer substantive insights into the effects of formal and informal institutions on individual behaviour and living conditions. This article introduces the main types of SOEP-based sociological research designs and discusses their survey methodological origins. It also points to underexplored potentials as well as limitations of the SOEP. Finally, it offers basic suggestions for approaching the data in each of the research designs presented.

Ethnic Discrimination in Multi-ethnic Societies: Evidence from Russia

Abstract: Field experiments have provided ample evidence of ethnic and racial discrimination in the labour market. Less is known about how discrimination varies in multi-ethnic societies, where the ethnic composition of populations is different across locations. Inter-group contact and institutional arrangements for ethnic minorities can mitigate the sense of group threat and reduce discrimination. To provide empirical evidence of this, we conduct a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in Russia with a sample of over 9,000 job applications. We compare ethnically homogeneous cities and cities with ethnically mixed populations and privileged institutional status of ethnic minorities. We find strong discrimination against visible minorities in the former but much weaker discrimination in the latter. These findings demonstrate how institutions and historical contexts of inter-group relations can affect ethnic prejudice and discrimination.

Social Mobility and Perceived Discrimination: Adding an Intergenerational Perspective

Abstract: This article adds an intergenerational perspective to the study of perceived ethnic discrimination. It proposes the conjecture that perceived discrimination tends to increase with parental education, particularly among those children of immigrants who have attained only mediocre levels of education themselves. I discuss that this conjecture may be developed as an argument that comes in two versions: a narrow version about explicit downward (intergenerational) mobility and a wide version about unfulfilled mobility aspirations more generally. Analyses based on the six-country comparative EURISLAM survey support the argument: parental education positively predicts perceived discrimination in general, but among the less educated this relation is most pronounced whereas it is absent among those with tertiary education. A replication and falsification test based on the German IAB-SOEP Migration Sample reconfirms the main finding and provides further original pieces of evidence. The analyses suggest processes associated with unfulfilled mobility aspirations as the more plausible underlying reason.

Explaining Differences in Welfare Chauvinism Between and Within Individuals Over Time: The Role of Subjective and Objective Economic Risk, Economic Egalitarianism, and Ethnic Threat

Abstract: A considerable portion of European citizens are in favour of limited or conditional access for migrants to welfare provisions. Previous studies found that this welfare chauvinism is stronger among citizens with less favourable economic positions. This study seeks to explain the relationship between economic risk, both objective and subjective, and welfare chauvinism by looking at two distinct mechanisms: the traditional economic explanation of economic egalitarianism and the cultural explanation of ethnic threat. Given the lack of longitudinal studies, we also examine whether changes in economic risk, economic egalitarianism and threat can explain changes in welfare chauvinism over time. Using a four-wave panel-study (2013–2015) collected in Great Britain and the Netherlands, these relationships were studied both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The longitudinal mediation model was tested by making use of parallel process latent growth curve modelling. In both Great Britain and the Netherlands, economic egalitarianism and ethnic threat explained the link between economic risk and welfare chauvinism. Furthermore, in both countries, an increase over time in perceptions of ethnic threat was found to be the driving force behind an increase in welfare chauvinism, irrespective of changes in economic egalitarianism.

Contingent Employment and Labour Market Pathways: Bridge or Trap?

Abstract: The debate over whether contingent (and typically more precarious) employment acts as a bridge to permanent employment, or as a trap, has tended to focus on transitions rather than longer-run pathways This approach cannot accurately identify indirect pathways from contingent to permanent employment, and nor can it identify 'trap' pathways involving short spells in other states It also fails to distinguish between those experiencing contingent employment as a 'blip' and those with longer spells This article employs a different approach involving sequence analysis Exploiting longitudinal data for Australian, evidence for the co-existence of pathways that correspond to 'bridge' and 'trap' characterisations of contingent employment is found Further, in the case of casual employment these two types of labour market pathways are roughly equally prevalent, although for some groups – in particular women, those with low educational attainment, and those with a disability – 'traps' are more likely than 'bridges'

Why parental unemployment matters for children's educational attainment: Empirical Evidence from the Netherlands

Abstract: This study examines the effect of parents' unemployment on their children's subsequent educational attainment. Its theoretical significance lies on its focus to test the mediating role of parents' changing work ethics during spells of unemployment. Integrating multiple survey and administrative data sources, our estimates are based on a sample of Dutch children (n = 812) who were exposed to their parents' unemployment during the previous economic crisis in the early 1980s. Our results reveal a direct negative effect between fathers' unemployment duration and their children's educational attainment and also an indirect effect through mothers' changing attitudes towards work. We also find empirical evidence that mothers' and fathers' whose views about work become more pessimistic lead to reduced educational attainment among their children.

The Effects of Recognition of Foreign Education for Newly Arrived Immigrants

Abstract: We analyze the effects of formal recognition of foreign higher education on employment probabilities and earnings for newly arrived immigrants in Sweden. Prior research has found that immigrants ha ...

Changes in Fathers’ and Mothers’ Time with Children: Spain, 2002–2010

Abstract: Parental time spent with children is a critical determinant for a child’s cognitive, educational, and socio-emotional development. Using two waves of the Spanish Time Use Surveys, this study aims to investigate how mothers and fathers reorganized the time invested in physical and developmental childcare between 2002 and 2010. Results show that, during the period analyzed (marked by the start of the Great Recession in 2007), there had been: (i) a significant increase in the time fathers and mothers invested in childcare (i.e. an intensification of parenting); (ii) a gender convergence in physical care time, primarily driven by couples with very young children; and (iii) the gap in developmental childcare time invested between parents with and without a university degree remained unchanged. The decomposition of the results shows that the increase in father-child time is explained by a combination of changes in behavioural and compositional factors (i.e. increase in unemployment and level of education), whereas for changes in mother-child time, behavioural factors predominantly applied. These findings reinforce ideas of the rapid intensification of parenting, and a slow movement towards gender convergence in parental time spent with children.

Navigating Institutions: Parents’ Knowledge of the Educational System and Students’ Success in Education

Abstract: This study investigates whether families navigate educational institutions more successfully if they have a higher knowledge of the pathways in the educational system that are available to their children. We also study whether this kind of knowledge mediates secondary effects of social origin, i.e. differences in educational pathways once achievement differences between children are accounted for. The role of parents’ knowledge is consistent with various sociological theories concerning educational inequality. Knowledge can affect families’ ability to make rational choices for education but it can also be understood as a form of cultural capital. We use longitudinal student cohort data from the Netherlands combined with individual-level register data on educational attainment to study the importance of knowledge for short-term outcomes (up- and downward transitions in secondary education as well as track placement) and final educational attainment. Our results show that parents’ knowledge is a significant predictor of educational success net of parents’ education, socio-demographic characteristics, and demonstrated ability. If we apply a stricter test to the measure, however, we can see that knowledge matters for downward transitions and obtaining a tertiary degree but that the effect is negligible for upward transitions and track placement if other mechanisms such as cultural capital and aspirations are considered. Further, we conclude that knowledge matters especially for transitions in the educational system that require a move to a new and unknown school environment such as post-secondary or tertiary education. The study shows that knowledge is one useful avenue to investigate when we are confronted with the question why social disparities in educational decision-making arise.

Tying the Extended Family Knot—Grandparents’ Influence on Educational Achievement

Abstract: In present-day western societies grandparents and grandchildren have longer years of shared lifetime than ever before. We investigate whether children with more grandparent resources have a higher probability of achieving the general secondary degree compared with children with fewer resources, or whether shared lifetime with grandparents increases the probability of achieving the general secondary degree. We use high-quality Finnish Census Panel data and apply sibling random and fixed-effects models that also control for all unobserved factors shared by siblings. Grandparents’ education and socioeconomic status have only a limited ability to explain a grandchild’s educational achievement. However, the sibling fixed-effects models reveal that every shared year between grandparents and grandchildren increases a grandchild’s likelihood of completing general secondary education by 1 percentage point, on average. The effect of shared lifetime is conditional on grandparental type, family resources, and the size of the extended family. Maternal grandmothers have a positive effect on grandchildren’s education in low-income families. Paternal grandmothers provide a link to the resources available through the extended family network, independent of their own resources. The same effects were not observed for grandfathers.

A micro-scale approach to ethnic minority concentration in the residential environment and voting for the radical right in the Netherlands

Abstract: Existing empirical research on the link between ethnic minority concentration in residential environments and voting for the radical right is inconclusive, mainly due to major differences between studies in the spatial scale at which minority concentration is measured. We examined whether the presence of non-western ethnic minorities in the residential environment, measured at four spatial scales, is related to individuals’ intention to vote for the Dutch Party for Freedom (Dutch acronym PVV). We combined individual level survey data and register data, and we used multi-level structural equation models to examine possible mediation by anti-immigrant attitudes and political dissatisfaction. The models show different effects at different scales. At the micro scale (100 by 100 meter grids) we find a curvilinear effect: individuals with 30–50 per cent non-western minorities in their direct living environment are most likely to report to vote for the PVV. At higher spatial scales (up to municipal level) we find that the higher the proportion of non-western minorities, the more likely individuals are to report to vote for the PVV. These effects can however not be explained by anti-immigrant attitudes or political dissatisfaction. We even find that at the micro scale the presence of non-western minorities is related to less anti-immigrant attitudes.

How Polities Shape Support for Gender Equality and Religiosity’s Impact in Arab Countries

Abstract: Previous public opinion studies argued that in the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Muslim citizens support gender equality less than non-Muslims, due to Islamic-patriarchal socialization. Deviating from this Orientalist narrative, we formulate a context-dependent agentic-socialization framework, which acknowledges religiosity's and gender equality's multidimensionality along with the MENA's political-institutional diversity. We expect that religious service attendance and devotion decrease support for gender equality in politics but not in education. Moreover, we theorize that open political structures allow citizens to express agency and dissociate from dominant patriarchal patterns. We test these expectations using WVS and AB data covering 50,000 respondents in 39 MENA country-years. Our results show religious service attendance indeed reduces support for gender equality. However, more devoted citizens support gender equality in education more than the less devoted, and in more democratic polities and in polities with more freedom of press, the same is found for political gender equality. Moreover, support for gender equality is greater in open polities than closed ones, but this gap closes when people frequent religious services. These results suggest MENA citizens are not univocally passively socialized by patriarchal religious views, but actively engage with other interpretations, provided these are not banned by oppressive governments.

Gender and socioeconomic inequalities in health at older ages across different European welfare clusters : Evidence from SHARE data, 2004-2015

Abstract: This study takes a comparative approach to assess whether the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health in later life differs by gender in a sample of individuals aged 50 and above living in nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland). We apply linear hybrid (between-within) regression models using panel data (50,459 observations from 13,955 respondents) from five waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) between the years 2004-2015. SES measures included education, income, and wealth. A 40- item Frailty Index (FI) of accumulated deficits, an important indicator of health in older populations, was used as dependent variable. Considering between-effects estimates, our results show that the positive impact of education and wealth on health is stronger for women living in countries where the welfare arrangements are less decommodifying and defamilializing. No such interaction is found for income and for fixed-effects estimates. This study could advance the understanding of gender inequalities in health. Also, such findings can guide future policies devoted at reducing gender and socioeconomic inequalities in health in later life.

Weighing up work willingness in social assistance : a balancing act on multiple levels

Abstract: In all European countries, social assistance receipt is conditional upon the willingness to work. Yet despite the harsh consequences of losing social assistance, we know surprisingly little about how social assistance agencies and social workers implement this policy in day-to-day practice. In this paper, we focus on three important questions regarding the implementation of work willingness as a condition for continued social assistance benefit receipt. First, how does the actual implementation of the work willingness condition take place in light of specific client characteristics, circumstances and behaviour? Second, is the interpretation of such behaviour similar across case managers and municipalities, or does the combination of vague work willingness legislation and a decentralized organisation lead to variation in implementation? Third, can such variation be seen as the express objective of decentralization and personalized work willingness assessments? We build on an innovative and purpose-designed factorial survey of social workers in Belgium. We identified the determinants of 582 social workers’ sanction decisions upon a job refusal, clustered in 89 municipalities, on almost 5000 experimentally varied client cases. These unique data allow to distinguish between the effects of individual client characteristics, characteristics of the social workers assessing the individual cases and the characteristics of the local welfare agency and municipality in which she operates. Moreover, we assess how characteristics within and between these levels interact. In line with the literature, we find substantial variation in sanctions related to work unwillingness at the client level, that can be explained by individual client characteristics. Variation between municipalities is relatively limited, and can be fully explained by municipality characteristics. Surprisingly, we find the largest variation at the social worker level. Whereas some of this variation is random, a substantial part can be explained by the characteristics of the social worker. This finding raises concerns about the unintended consequences of the large discretion awarded to social workers within contemporary social assistance schemes.

The Influence of Fathers and Mothers Equally Sharing Childcare Responsibilities on Children's Cognitive Development from Early Childhood to School Age: An Overlooked Mechanism in the Intergenerational Transmission of (Dis)Advantages?

Abstract: There is increasing awareness that the intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantages is filtered through intra-familial dynamics, in particular parenting practices. Surprisingly, few studies have investigated what role the extent to which fathers and mothers equally share childcare responsibilities plays in this transmission. Using data from 2,027 families in a Dutch prospective cohort study, our Structural Equation Modeling-analyses showed direct effects of equally sharing responsibilities for playful activities on children’s cognitive development. Additionally, our study yielded some evidence for the hypothesis that equally sharing responsibilities for playful activities mediates the impact of parents’ educational attainment on children’s cognitive development. This suggests that the extent to which fathers and mothers equally share childcare responsibilities functions as an underlying mechanism for maintaining social class disparities in children’s cognitive development. Our findings also suggest that policies and programs that encourage fathers and mothers to equally share playful activities may help promote children’s cognitive development.