Migrant Workers and Workplace Bullying in Urban China

Trends of subjective well-being (SWB) in transition countries are peculiar: they show substantial changes that are more strongly correlated with the trends of GDP than in other developed countries. This paper examines the role of the trends of GDP and of social trust in predicting the trends of well-being. We find that the strength of the relationship between social trust and SWB over the medium-term is comparable to that of GDP. We conclude that in the medium-term, even in countries where material concerns strongly affect well-being, social trust is a powerful predictor of the trends of SWB. However, in the short run the relationship between social trust and SWB does not hold and GDP stands out as the only significant correlate of SWB.     

How Friendship Network Characteristics Influence Subjective Well-Being

This article explores how friendship network characteristics influence subjective well-being (SWB). Using data from the 2003 General Social Survey of Canada, three components of the friendship network are differentiated: number of friends, frequency of contact, and heterogeneity of friends. We argue that these characteristics shape SWB through the benefits they bring. Benefits considered are more social trust, less stress, better health, and more social support. Results confirm that higher frequency of contacts and higher number of friends, as well as lower heterogeneity of the friendship network are related to more social trust, less stress, and a better health. Frequency of contact and number of friends, as well as more heterogeneity of the friendship network increase the chance of receiving help from friends. With the exception of receiving help from friends, these benefits are in turn related to higher levels of SWB. Only the frequency of meeting friends face-to-face has a remaining positive direct influence on SWB.     

Does Trust Always Help Gender Role Attitudes? The Role of Individualism and Collectivism

Social trust has a complex interrelationship with attitudes toward gender equality. Social trust has its origins in exchange relationships in preindustrial societies, lowering uncertainty in transactions and easing interpersonal exchanges. The degree to which this trust was extended to opportunities for women in commercial and societal roles, however, differed across cultures. Prior literature finds attitudes toward individualism and collectivism have significant implications for gender equality and patriarchal attitudes. We combine these ideas arguing that the degree to which social trust fosters gender equality depends upon the degrees of individualism and collectivism. Employing World Values Survey data across countries over time, we find that with low levels of individualism, and high degrees of collectivism, higher levels of trust are not effective in reducing the prevalence of gendered patriarchal attitudes—in fact it entrenches them further, worsening gender equality. However, as individualism rises, and collectivism falls, higher levels of trust become effective in reducing the prevalence of patriarchal beliefs. Thus, collectivistic beliefs stand as a barrier to future improvements in women’s equality and economic rights in many societies; preventing social trust from being extended beyond traditional gendered roles.

     

The Dual-Factor Model of Mental Health: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study of School-Related Outcomes

The Dual-Factor Model of Mental Health, proposed by Greenspoon and Sasklofske (Soc Indic Res 54:81–108, 2001), suggested that student mental health should be assessed on a dimension of psychopathology as well as a dimension of subjective well-being (SWB). Greenspoon and Sasklofske (Soc Indic Res 54:81–108, 2001) argued that measuring both psychopathology and SWB allow mental health professionals to have a more complete understanding of the child’s psychological health. The present exploratory study provided a further evaluation of the usefulness of the Dual-Factor model in understanding adolescents’ SWB using both person-centered and variable-centered analyses. Using person-centered analyses, we explored whether group membership revealed differential changes in middle school students’ GPAs as well as emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement across a 5-month time period. Furthermore, we used variable-centered analyses to examine whether middle school students’ levels of SWB at Time 1 predicted changes in our criterion variables. Specifically, we assessed whether SWB at Time 1 predicted student school engagement and GPA at Time 2 above and beyond their levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors at Time 1, levels of student engagement and grades at Time 1, and demographic variables. Results of the person-centered analyses found statistically significant differences across the four groups identified in the Dual-Factor Model for emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement as well as GPA. The results from the variable-centered analyses suggest subjective well-being to be a significant predictor of emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement beyond measures of psychopathology. These results provide additional support for use of the Dual-Factor Model.     

Could the EQ-5D be Used to Predict Mortality and Hospitalization Over a Long Term Period?

Although numerous studies have demonstrated that social support affects a range of life experiences, only a few have examined the moderators and mediators such as self-esteem. According to self-control theory, self-control represents one’s ability to override or change one’s inner responses, and to interrupt undesired behavioral tendencies and refrain from acting on them. A high level of self-control may help individuals to mediate or moderate negative affect and thus weaken any adverse effects, contributing to their subjective well-being (SWB) in the long run. The current study explored how this interaction may affect the subjective well-being of the Chinese elderly, for whom self-control and social support are especially important life management issues. The study examined whether self-control mediates and moderates the relationship between social support and SWB among the elderly Chinese population. The data were collected from 335 elderly Chinese people (162 females and 173 males) from ten cities in central China, who completed the Chinese Social Support Scale, Trait Self-control Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale. The results showed that self-control, social support and SWB were strongly and significantly related. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-control partially mediated the influence of social support on SWB. Moreover, self-control moderated the relationship between social support and positive affect, but not life satisfaction and negative affect. These findings imply that self-control is a critical indicator of SWB and can serve as a basis for differentiating between intervention strategies that promote SWB among the elderly by helping them manage positive and negative affect. Future studies should further examine the internal mechanisms by which self-control influences SWB.     

Income Inequality and Subjective Well-being: A Cross-National Study on the Conditional Effects of Individual and National Characteristics

In this study we raise the question how a nation’s income inequality affects subjective well-being. Using information on 195,091 individuals from 85 different countries from the World Value Surveys and the European Value Surveys, we established that in general, people living in more unequal countries report higher well-being than people from more equal countries. This association however does not apply to all people similarly. First, the positive effect of a nation’s income inequality is weaker when individuals express more social and institutional trust, and underscore egalitarian norms to a larger extent. Second, the positive association between national income inequality and subjective well-being is less strong for people from countries with high levels of social and institutional trust. So, our research predominantly indicates that there are far-reaching effects of an individual’s and a nation’s trust on people’s well-being.     

The Characteristics of Children’s Subjective Well-Being

Despite the increased interest in recent decades in the study of children’s subjective well-being (SWB), much too little is known about the factors that contribute to their SWB, especially with regards to socio-demographic characteristics. In addition, only handful of studies has made a comparison between countries and was based on large samples. The present study is a first of its kind. Utilizing the International Study of Children’s Well-Being first wave data set with questionnaires from over 34,500 children from 14 different countries to explore the characteristics of children’s SWB and the relations between an array of socio-demographic variables and children’s SWB. SWB was measured using three scales—overall life satisfaction, overall satisfaction in specific domains and overall SWB that was measured using agreement items. The socio-demographic variables were composed of demographic characteristics (e.g. gender and age), self-reported socio-economic items and the children’s country of residence. Findings show that children’s SWB in all countries is relatively high, although some variation can be found between the three SWB scales. Differences were found between the three measurements of SWB in regard to the explained variance, nevertheless the socio-demographic characteristics explain relatively low amount of the variance in SWB (10.9–20.2 %). The demographic variables have the lowest contribution, followed by the socio-economic items, while countries have the highest contribution. Thus one of our main conclusions is that the answer for understanding children’s SWB does not lay in the socio-demographic characteristics. The implications of these findings for further research of children’s SWB are discussed.     

Intercultural Experience as an Impediment of Trust: Examining the Impact of Intercultural Experience and Social Trust Culture on Institutional Trust in Government

Government is an important institution in every society, but public trust in government has been declining worldwide. Like social trust, institutional trust in government manifests in two forms—goodwill-based (based on intentions and purposes) and competence-based (based on competence and performance). Using archival data of the AsiaBarometer (2004), I found a cross-level interaction effect of intercultural experience and social trust culture on goodwill-based, but not competence-based, institutional trust in government. Intercultural experience was negatively related to goodwill-based institutional trust in government within regions of low social trust but not within regions of high social trust. Both types of institutional trust in government within regions of high social trust were lower than those within regions of low social trust. Furthermore, both types of institutional trust in government were positively related to socioeconomic, public, and personal life satisfaction. These findings shed light on the tension between institutional trust in government and social trust as well as a government’s dilemma posed by intercultural experience.     

The Measure Matters: An Investigation of Evaluative and Experience-Based Measures of Wellbeing in Time Use Data

Measures of subjective wellbeing (SWB) are used to understand how people think and feel about their lives and experiences. But the measure used matters to conclusions about how well people’s lives are going. This research compares life evaluations and experienced SWB using nationally representative time use diaries, advancing previous research because diaries are less subject to recall biases than other, more popular methods. Analyses of over 20,000 US residents in 2012–2013 show life evaluations are more closely associated with positive and negative affect than experienced meaningfulness. Women have higher SWB than men except for negative affect, older age groups have higher SWB than middle age groups except for experienced meaningfulness, and younger age groups report the lowest experienced meaning. The unemployed have low life evaluations but experiences of SWB are similar across employment groups. A complete picture of SWB requires a complete set of measures.     

Conceptualising and Measuring Social Cohesion in Africa: Towards a Perceptions-Based Index

Social cohesion is a key concept in development studies. Weak social cohesion is often related to slow economic growth and (violent) conflict. So far few attempts have been made to measure this complex concept in a systematic manner. This paper introduces an innovative method to measure national-level social cohesion based on survey data from 19 African countries. We distinguish three dimensions of social cohesion; i.e. the extent of perceived inequalities, the level of societal trust, and the strength of people’s adherence to their national identity. Importantly, our Social Cohesion Index (SCI) is based on individuals’ perceptions vis-à-vis these three different dimensions of social cohesion rather than certain macro-level ‘objective’ indicators such as GDP/capita or Gini-coefficients. We develop two social cohesion indices: a national average SCI and a Social Cohesion Index Variance-Adjusted (SCIVA); the latter one takes into account the level of variation across different ethnic groups within countries. The SCI and SCIVA are computed for and compared across nineteen African countries for the period 2005–2012 on the basis of Afrobarometer survey rounds 3, 4 and 5. We also investigate quantitatively the relationship between countries’ levels of social cohesion and the occurrence of a range of conflict events. As expected, we find that countries with low levels of social cohesion in a particular year according to our SCI are more likely to experience a range of different violent conflict events in the subsequent year.     

Subjective Well-Being in China: Associations with Absolute,Relative, and Perceived Economic Circumstances

Numerous studies examining the impact of income on subjective well-being (SWB) have found significant positive relationships exhibiting decreasing marginal returns. However, the impact of economic circumstances on SWB is better captured through a combination of income, wealth (per capita net worth), and perceived and relative economic conditions. Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project, I find that within rural and urban China, wealth significantly predicts SWB, exhibiting decreasing marginal returns independent of more common measures of economic circumstances such as income and occupational status. Within urban China, these associations decrease in magnitude and significance with the addition of objective relative measures of wealth and income. Finally, I find that subjective perceptions of relative standard of living are strongly associated with SWB independent of other measures. These results highlight the importance of using multiple objective and subjective measures of economic circumstances, demonstrating potential limitations of studies that have focused exclusively on income as a predictor of well-being. Results are interpreted within the context of China’s changing social and economic structure.     

Explaining Low Subjective Well-Being of Persons with Disabilities in Europe: The Impact of Disability, Personal Resources, Participation and Socio-Economic Status

Persons with chronic disabilities report the lowest subjective well-being (SWB) in many countries. The gap in SWB compared with the non-disabled population is smaller in some countries than in others. Data from the European Social Survey were analysed in order to: (1) describe the inequality in SWB in 21 European countries; and (2) identify the main determinants of this inequality in SWB. Data on a range of topics of a total of 40,605 persons, including 2,846 persons with serious chronic disabilities, were used of the European Social Survey. SWB was measured using multi-item scales for ‘emotional well-being’ and ‘satisfying life’. Variables on disability, socio-demographics (age, gender, household composition), socio-economic status (level of education, net household income), participation (paid work, voluntary work, social contacts), and personal resources (supportive relationships, social cohesion, vitality, optimism, resilience, perceived autonomy, perceived accomplishment, perceived capacity, perceived engagement, perceived meaning and purpose) were entered stepwise in regression models of SWB. The results show that persons with disabilities are in a disadvantaged position in terms of SWB in all countries. In the Northern countries, the gaps between disabled and non-disabled persons are smaller than in Eastern European countries. In all countries inequality in SWB is explained mostly by personal resources and not by the level of disability, socio-economic status or level of participation in work. The implications of these findings for policy and practice (e.g. social cohesion and physical exercise programs) are discussed.     

Shyness and Subjective Well-being: The Role of Emotional Intelligence and Social Support

This study examined the role of emotional intelligence (EI) and social support on the relationship between shyness and subjective well-being (SWB) in Chinese college students. The participants were 496 students, with an age range of 18–24, who were attending two different Chinese colleges. Data were collected by using the paper and pencil assessments including Cheek and Buss shyness scale, Wong and Law emotional intelligence scale, multi-dimensional scale of perceived social support, positive affect and negative affect scale and satisfaction with life scale. Path analysis showed that EI and social support partially mediated the relationship between shyness and SWB. The final model also revealed a significant path from shyness through EI and social support to SWB. Furthermore, a multi-group analysis found that the paths did not differ across sexes, but significantly differed between urban and rural areas. The results are discussed in terms of the conceptional context.     

Social Diversity,Institutions and Trust: A Cross-National Analysis

This cross-national investigation examines hypotheses derived from two major alternative perspectives on the determinants of trust in contemporary societies. Is a society’s level of generalized trust a function of its ethnic composition, or of its type of governance and political system? The argument that social diversity (ethnic, linguistic, and religious) leads to lower levels of trust, at least in the short run, is assessed with cross-national data (N = 98). Two hypotheses derived from this perspective are not confirmed. The alternative rational governance argument, which holds that trust is a function of rational governance, stable democracy, and civil rights is also assessed. Three hypotheses derived from this political perspective reveal mixed results. The findings highlight the complex interplay of multiple factors in shaping a society’s overall level of generalized trust.     

The Robustness of High Danish National Happiness: A Temporal Cross-Country Analysis of Population Subgroups

Denmark’s top position in various rankings of country happiness is well-documented. This study goes beyond the national average comparisons and investigates whether Denmark’s top position is also found when we disaggregate data in line with social categories often used within the social sciences. The central measure is the empirical probability that a given population subgroup in Denmark has significantly higher happiness compared to another country’s similar subgroup in a given year. All five rounds of the European Social Survey are used but only the sixteen countries that were surveyed in each of the five rounds are included in this study. The results show that Denmark’s position at the top of the happiness scale is also robust when we look at population subgroups, but not in the sense that Denmark dominates all countries for all years. Instead, a modified version of robustness is necessary; Denmark very often has significantly higher happiness levels than in other countries, only sometimes has the same happiness levels as in other countries, very rarely is it dominated by other countries, and finally it is never dominated by other countries in all 5 years for a given subpopulation characteristic. This conclusion is quite insensitive to the applied SWB measure and the applied significance level.

     

Seeking Construct Validity in Interpersonal Trust Research: A Proposal on Linking Theory and Survey Measures

This paper highlights the under-emphasised connection between theoretical conceptualisations and empirical operationalisations in the field of trust research. The paper proposes a matching of specific surveys measures with conceptualisations in order to work towards a more theoretically-informed empirical study of interpersonal trust. The work examines five widely-used survey measures of trust, and considers whether they are likely to operationalise conceptualisations of trust that are broadly more ‘strategic’ or more ‘moralistic’ in nature. It is argued that these trust questions, which are frequently used interchangeably, are likely to differ substantially from each other in terms of their conceptual underpinnings. This expectation is tested by examining the association between interpersonal trust and gender across seven UK social surveys. Findings indicate that the trust questions indeed have different associations with gender, providing support for the idea that some questions map more closely onto ‘strategic’ conceptualisations of trust, whilst others map more closely onto ‘moralistic’ conceptualisations. Implications of these findings are explored in the context of the search for construct validity in trust research.     

Identifying Social Trust in Cross-Country Analysis: Do We Really Measure the Same?

Many see trust as an important social resource for the welfare of individuals as well as nations. It is therefore important to be able to identify trust and explain its sources. Cross-country survey analysis has been an important tool in this respect, and often one single variable is used to identify social trust understood as trust in strangers, namely: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” The question, however, is whether this variable captures the meaning of social trust equally well in all countries. This is investigated by comparing different measurements of trust across five clusters of countries in all parts of the world. The analysis shows that there are considerable problems associated with the use of the variable of “most can be trusted” as an indicator of trust in strangers, both in terms of strangers understood as “people you meet for the first time” and in terms of strangers understood as people of a different nationality and religion. These results question the validity of previous investigations of social trust based on international survey material. The analysis furthermore reveals that a new survey question about trust in people one is meeting for the first time is better suited as indicator of social trust in comparative analysis.     

“As a Shepherd Divideth his Sheep from the Goats”: Does the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale Encapsulate Separable Theistic and Civility Components?

Numerous studies suggest spirituality and subjective well-being (SWB) are positively associated. However, critics argue that popular spirituality instruments—including the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES)—contain items that conflate religiosity/spirituality (R/S), prosociality and SWB. Advocates of the DSES retort that, despite this concern, the available evidence confirms a single underlying factor. The current paper evaluates the DSES’s development, factor structure, reliability and convergent and predictive validity using a community sample. Despite the full DSES scale’s excellent internal reliability, two related factors—theism and civility—are identified. Both scales are reliable and converge meaningfully with related R/S measures. As expected, given previous findings, the full DSES scale predicts higher SWB yet the two subscales display divergent associations. This finding offers new insights into the DSES and raises questions about the claimed belief-as-benefit effect.     

National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur?

There are marked variations between nations in reported subjective well-being (SWB), but the explanations for this diversity have not been fully explored. It is possible that the differences are entirely due to true variability in SWB, but it is also reasonable that the differences may be due to factors related to self-report measurement such as variation across nations in whether it is desirable to say one is happy. At a substantive level, there might be differences in the norms governing the experience of emotion such that cultural differences in SWB are due to affective regulation. Pacific Rim countries (e.g., Japan, the People's Republic of China, and S. Korea) appear to have lower SWB than their material circumstances warrant, and the U.S.A. has higher SWB than is predicted based on its income per person. The genesis of these differences was explored by comparing students in S. Korea, Japan, and the People's Republic of China to students in the U.S.A., and it was concluded that: (1) The Pacific Rim subjects score lower on both happiness and life satisfaction in both absolute terms and when income is controlled, (2) There probably is not a general negative response set in the Pacific Rim which causes lower SWB, as evidenced by the fact that the Asians express dissatisfaction in some areas (e.g., education and self) but not in other areas (e.g., social relationships), (3) Artifacts are not causing the lower reported SWB, (4) The general suppression of mood in the Pacific Rim is unlikely to be the cause of SWB differences, but Chinese students do appear to avoid negative affect, (5) SWB is no less important and salient in Japan and S. Korea, but does appear to be a less central concern in China, and (6) There are different patterns of well-being depending on whether life satisfaction or hedonic balance are considered.     

Education and Life Satisfaction in Relation to the Probability of Social Trust: a Conceptual Framework and Empirical Analysis

We employ cross-sectional microdata from 2010 through 2012 collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics to investigate the proposed conceptual framework regarding the joint relationship between education, life satisfaction and the probability of social trust. The analysis has been carried out using two alternative specifications of the logit model: parametric and semiparametric. Our findings suggest that (a) both modelling methods that we utilise yield consistent results in terms of the positive effects of education and life satisfaction on social trust; (b) for unsatisfied individuals, social trust is generally low and largely unresponsive to the individual’s education level, whereas for ‘sufficiently satisfied’ individuals, social trust increases strongly with education; (c) there are some gender differences in the joint relationship between education, life satisfaction and social trust and (d) the parametric approach tends to mask some interesting patterns that are captured by the semiparametric specification. This finding implies that the parametric approach leads to a biased interpretation of the results, with an apparent failure of some of the assumptions made in the conceptual framework.