The Relationship Between Social Capital and Individualism–Collectivism in Europe

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between social capital and individualism–collectivism in a sample of 50,417 individuals from 29 European countries using data from the European Social Survey Round 6 (2012). Social capital was measured in terms of generalized social trust and informal social networks; individualism–collectivism was operationalized via Schwartz’s Openness to Change–Conservation value dimension. Results from a hierarchical linear modeling analysis showed that less than 10% of variance in social capital indicators was found between countries, meaning that the level of social capital varies more substantively between individuals than between the countries. Openness to Change had a weak but statistically significant and positive relationship both with the indices of Generalized Social Trust and Informal Social Networks, which remained significant even when individual age, gender, education level, and domicile were controlled for. In sum, our findings show that the positive relationship between social capital and individualism that has been found at the cultural level also holds at the individual level: people who emphasize independent thought, action, and readiness to change are also more willing to believe that most people can be trusted and are more engaged in informal social networks. The relationship is, nevertheless, very weak and the strength of the association varies significantly across different European countries. This variation, however, cannot be explained by country differences in level of democracy or human development and the country’s wealth moderates only the individual level relationship between Openness to Change and Informal Social Networks. Our findings suggest that sources of social capital at the individual level can be found in people’s immediate social surroundings, as well as their everyday social interactions.     

Intergenerational Coresidence in Developing Countries

Newly available census microdata from IPUMS‐International are used to assess trends in intergenerational coresidence in 15 developing countries. Contrary to expectations, we find no general decline in intergenerational coresidence over the past several decades. There have been, however, significant changes in the configuration of intergenerational coresidence. Families in which a member of the older generation is household head—a configuration consistent with traditional patriarchal forms in which the older generation retains authority—are becoming more common in most of the countries. Intergenerational families headed by a member of the younger generation—the configuration one would expect if intergenerational coresidence were motivated by a need for old‐age support—are on the decline in most of the countries. Multivariate analysis reveals that intergenerational families headed by the older generation are positively associated with measures of economic development. These findings are at variance with widely accepted social theory. We hypothesize that housing shortages, economic stress in the younger generation, and old‐age pensions may contribute to the change. More broadly, in some developing countries rising incomes may have allowed more people to achieve their preferred family structure of intergenerational coresidence following traditional family forms.     

Financial Satisfaction in Old Age: A Satisfaction Paradox or a Result of Accumulated Wealth?

Prior research consistently has found that older adults, despite low incomes, are more financially satisfied than younger adults. This “satisfaction paradox” is typically attributed to elders’ supposed psychological accommodation to poor financial circumstances. We advance a different explanation, one that focuses on substantial age differences in wealth and liabilities. Data are from the first wave of the Norwegian NorLAG study (n = 4,169). Findings support the hypothesis that an examination of a wider range of economic variables shows that material circumstances are more important to the financial satisfaction of the elderly than previously believed. A considerable part of the higher financial satisfaction with increasing age can thus be explained by greater assets and less debt among the aged. Nonetheless, assets and debt do not mediate this relationship at lower incomes, because older people with little income have very little accumulated wealth. As older people with little income and wealth have a much stronger tendency to be financially satisfied than their younger, equally poor counterparts, an “aging paradox” still remains in this field.     

Productivity of Older Workers: Perceptions of Employers and Employees

What determines the perceived productivity of the older worker and how does this perception compare to the perception of the productivity of the younger worker? In this study we present evidence based on data from Dutch employers and employees. Productivity perceptions are affected by one's age and one's position in the hierarchy. The young favor the young, the old favor the old, and employers value the productivity of workers less than employees do. However, there are also remarkable similarities across employers and employees. By distinguishing the various dimensions that underlie the productivity of younger and older workers, we tested whether soft qualities and abilities—e.g., reliability and commitment—are just as important as hard qualities—cognitive and physically based skills—in the eyes of both employers and employees. It appears that both employers and employees, young and old, view hard skills as far more important than soft skills.     

Healthy,Wealthy, Wise,and Happy? Assessing Age Differences in Evaluative and Emotional Well-Being Among Mature Adults from Five Low- and Middle-Income Countries

This study assesses the relationship between age and two dimensions of subjective well-being—evaluative and emotional—among mature adults from five low-and middle-income countries. We use data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health to contrast the associations of age with subjective well-being when controlling only for gender with the corresponding partial associations when including a richer set of covariates. Adjusting only for gender, we find negative associations of age with evaluative well-being, while the corresponding age gradients for emotional well-being are relatively flat. By contrast, adjusting for further socio-demographic factors results in positive associations of age with both evaluative and emotional well-being. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions allow us to explore the roles of two factors to account for any unadjusted age differences in subjective well-being: age-group differences in individual characteristics and life circumstances, and age-specific associations of individual characteristics and life circumstances with subjective well-being. While adverse circumstances such as poor health and low income contribute to lower levels of evaluative well-being among older adults, age per se is—ceteris paribus—positively associated with subjective well-being. Even in poorer countries, older age does not need to be a time of low subjective well-being. Policies aimed at preserving income and limiting or compensating old-age disability appear to be key for maintaining subjective well-being among older adults.

     

Forever young: Visual representations of gender and age in online dating sites for older adults

ABSTRACT

Online dating has become increasingly popular among older adults following broader social media adoption patterns. The current study examined the visual representations of people on 39 dating sites intended for the older population, with a particular focus on the visualization of the intersection between age and gender. All 39 dating sites for older adults were located through the Google search engine. Visual thematic analysis was performed with reference to general, non-age-related signs (e.g., facial expression, skin color), signs of aging (e.g., perceived age, wrinkles), relational features (e.g., proximity between individuals), and additional features such as number of people presented. The visual analysis in the present study revealed a clear intersection between ageism and sexism in the presentation of older adults. The majority of men and women were smiling and had a fair complexion, with light eye color and perceived age of younger than 60. Older women were presented as younger and wore more cosmetics as compared with older men. The present study stresses the social regulation of sexuality, as only heterosexual couples were presented. The narrow representation of older adults and the anti-aging messages portrayed in the pictures convey that love, intimacy, and sexual activity are for older adults who are “forever young.”     

Facilitating longer working lives: International evidence on why and how

The article advances the view that social and economic choices in societies can reasonably adjust as the age structure of the population changes; in particular, some of the bounty of longer lives can reasonably be allocated to prolonging the labor force participation of older workers. Data on reductions in mortality and, in some countries, declines in disability are presented in ways that help to clarify that prolonged working lives may be a natural concomitant of living longer. The article reviews the problems inherent in the combination of living longer and reducing labor force participation at older ages. It discusses two ways to facilitate longer working lives: (1) eliminating penalties on work at older ages—inherent in the provisions of the social security programs in many countries—that induce older persons to leave the labor force at younger ages; and (2) correcting a false rationale—the “boxed economy” view of the labor market—that is often used to support retention of the provisions that induce older persons to leave the labor force.     

Focussing on the Extremes of Good and Bad: Media Reporting of Countries Ranked Via Index-Based League Tables

The paper provides the first published evidence for a ‘U’ shaped relationship between country ‘league-table’ ranking based on the Human Development Index and Corruption Perception Index and media reporting. The results suggest that the Extremity Hypothesis proposed by Heath (Glob Environ Change 21(1): 198–208, 1996) applies to such data rather than the alternative of the Centrality Hypothesis. In the Extremity Hypothesis people are more likely to transmit information regarding extremes, perhaps because people value ‘surprisingness’ or think that others do so, and the inevitable polarity of league-tables would appear to invite greater attention on those countries that rank high and low. This is an important finding as it suggests that countries at these extremes could act as exemplars. However, this is not to say that at more regional scales the media may pick-up on differences between ‘peer group’ countries ranked towards the middle of the league-table. Much more attention needs to be given by researchers to the use of indicators and indices and what helps to influence this, especially as it would help inform further development of existing indicators/indices and the creation of new ones.     

Environmental change and migration: methodological considerations from ground-breaking global survey

In recent years, policy makers and scientists have become interested in the dynamic links between migration and environmental change (Döös in Global Environ Change 7(1):41–61, 1997; Adger et al. in Living with Environmental Change: Social vulnerability, adaptation and resilience in Vietnam, 2001; Gunderson and Holling in Panarchy—understanding transformations in systems of humans and nature, Island Press, Washington, DC, Gunderson and Holling 2002; Scoones et al. in Dynamic systems and the challenge of sustainability, 2007; Galaz et al. in Ecosystems under pressure. A policy brief for the International Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2008). Recently, scoping activities have emerged to produce empirical observations about the role of environmental change in decisions about human mobility, including a range of movements from voluntary to forced migration and displacement. One notable recent attempt to contribute to the base of knowledge about the links between environmental change and migration has been the European Commission co-sponsored the Environmental Change and Forced Scenarios (EACH-FOR) project. The EACH-FOR project was created to assess the impact of environmental change on migration at the local, national, regional and international level. This paper shares the methods and fieldwork experiences of a first-time, multicontinent survey of environmental change and migration from the research project supported by the European Commission: Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR, Contract Number 044468, http://www.each-for.eu). This paper has three purposes. First, the authors explore issues related to how EACH-FOR designed its methodological approach for the first global survey of environmental change and migration. The paper then describes how the project attempted to create a method that would produce comparable results in a challenging context of multiple scientific challenges and trade-offs for research design. The second purpose of this paper is to examine how field researchers implemented and used this methodology in the EACH-FOR project. This paper takes a closer look at the fieldwork approach applied in investigating the 23 EACH-FOR project case studies. These case studies presented diverse local conditions and social contexts and different types of environmental changes. The paper discusses some of the practical considerations and shortcomings of the method in practice and illustrates how local researchers from selected case studies managed the challenges of their complex assignment. The third purpose of this paper is to explore lessons learned from the initial fieldwork experience and fruitful directions for future research.     

A Theory of Life Satisfaction Dynamics: Stability,Change and Volatility in 25-Year Life Trajectories in Germany

An adequate theory of life satisfaction (LS) needs to take account of both factors that tend to stabilise LS and those that change it. The most widely accepted theory in the recent past—set-point theory—focussed solely on stability (Brickman and Campbell, in: Appley (ed) Adaptation level theory, Academic Press, New York, pp 287–302, 1971; Lykken and Tellegen in Psychol Sci 7:186–189, 1996). That theory is now regarded as inadequate by most researchers, given that national panel surveys in several Western countries show that substantial minorities of respondents have recorded large, long term changes in LS (Sheldon and Lucas in The stability of happiness, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2014). In this paper we set out a preliminary revised theory, based mainly on analysis of the LS trajectories of the 2473 respondents in the German Socio-Economic Panel who reported their LS for 25 consecutive years in 1990–2014. The theory entails three sets of propositions in which we attempt to account for stability, change and also volatility. First, it is proposed that stability is primarily due to stable personality traits, and also to parental influence on LS. The second set of propositions indicates that medium and long term changes are due to differences and changes in personal values/life priorities and behavioural choices. Differences in the priority given to pro-social values, family values and materialistic values affect LS, as do behavioural choices relating to one’s partner, physical exercise, social participation and networks, church attendance, and the balance between work and leisure. Medium term change is reinforced by two-way causation—positive feedback loops—between values, behavioural choices and LS. The third set of propositions breaks new ground in seeking to explain inter-individual differences in the volatility/variability of LS over time; why some individuals display high volatility and others low, even though their mean level of LS may change little over 25 years.     

Coordinated approaches to large-scale movements of people: contributions of the Paris Agreement and the Global Compacts for migration and on refugees

It is not yet clear how climate change will affect the structural constraints and spatial and social complexity that affect population movements in the future. Today, countries of origin, transit, and destination have reached a juncture. The UNFCCC Paris Agreement adds value to decisions these countries face by helping them explore possible scenarios for impacts that include large movements of people that could be associated with a rise in global average temperatures between 1.5 and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Climate policy and mainstream migration and refugee policy are developing recommendations by the end of 2018 that, together, will provide new contours for governing human mobility in the twenty-first century. This paper compares work on human mobility under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and how climate change features in the initial drafts of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The international community can choose not to include such future considerations, missing opportunities to avert risks of involuntary movements of people as climate change impacts intensify. Alternatively, the international community can help countries to preempt risks arising from governance gaps and climate impacts, incorporate climate and mobility considerations in planning, and establish contingency arrangements for large-scale movements of people. A measure of efficacy in coordinating responses to large-scale movements of people will be the degree to which both state and non-state actors take up the recommendations of the Task Force on Displacement, how the Global Compact for Migration is negotiated, and the degree to which states utilize the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework as climate and other dynamics unfold in future years.     

Active Participation and Well-Being Among the Elderly in Belgium and the USA: A Cross-National Time-Use Perspective

Active participation of the elderly is a recognized response to address the societal and individual challenges of rising life expectancy such as releasing the pressure of age-related public spending, reducing social isolation and improving well-being. How much time older people devote to active participation and whether their time allocation is associated with well-being remains under-investigated. Using time-use data from Belgium (n?=?1384) and the USA (n?=?2133), we investigate the time older people (65–80 years) spent on active participation and examine how this relates to their life satisfaction as an indicator of well-being. The countries vary in the amount of time spent on paid employment and volunteering, but not on informal help. Belgian older people spend much less time on paid employment than their American counterparts. This implies more are available to volunteer and provide informal help. Yet participation rates in these activities are higher in the USA. Multivariate analyses show that associations between active participation and life satisfaction vary between both countries and within both countries by gender and age. Overall, positive associations between paid work and volunteering and life satisfaction suggest that governments would do well to mobilize elderly into active participation, especially in Belgium. Negative associations between informal help and life satisfaction suggest governments should provide greater support for informal carers.

     

The Importance of Fairness and Equity for the Marital Satisfaction of Older Women

ABSTRACT

In all societies, people are concerned with social justice. “It's just not right” is a fairly common lament. In these two studies, we interviewed 240 older women, who ranged in age from 50 to 82. We found that most older women (85%) considered their marriages to be fair and equitable. Older women were less concerned about existing inequities than their younger peers. Nonetheless, they were somewhat concerned with how rewarding and how fair and equitable their relationships were perceived to be. Those who felt over-benefited, for example, felt more guilty than did their less advantaged peers; those who felt under-benefited felt far more angry than did their privileged peers. Stressful life events—such as the arrival of children, retirement, serious illness, or the awareness impending death—often brought to awareness long simmering resentments over issues of fairness.     

Gender Differences in Self-Regulation Patterns and Attitudes Toward Driving Among Older Adults

ABSTRACT

The automobile is essential for many older adults to fulfill their daily needs, especially since many live where they lack access to public transit or other acceptable modes of transportation. Increased self-regulation is one way older drivers continue to drive safely and maintain mobility. This research considers whether self-regulation attitudes and patterns differ by gender. Results indicate that women and men report distinct patterns of self-regulation behaviors. Age, health status, and household status also interact with gender, influencing the extent of self-regulation. The results also show that women report lower levels of confidence in their driving skills than men, although the difference varies based on whether or not a woman lives alone. Implications of these results are considered for an aging population—particularly women—that over the coming decades will be more reliant on the automobile for transportation than ever before.     

Raumspezifische Armutsgefährdung im Alter

The aim of this article is to investigate income poverty risks of older people in Austria considering spatial aspects. By comparing rural and urban regions it should be tested whether spatial variables exert a significant effect on the income poverty risk of older people and how such an effect can be explained. Thus, specific aspects of rural poverty among older people are discussed. The empirical analysis is based on EU-SILC 2004. A binary-logistic regression model is applied in order to test the effect of local population density and local population size on the poverty risk of older people. Results show that the poverty risk of both older people and retirees increases significantly if population density decreases. The effect of local community size, however, was insignificant. For the younger population (< 60), on the contrary, poverty risk increases significantly with both decreasing population density and local community size.     

Concealing Concealment: The Mediating Role of Internalized Heterosexism in Psychological Distress Among Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Recent population-based studies indicate that sexual minorities aged 50 and older experience significantly higher rates of psychological distress than their heterosexual age-peers. The minority stress model has been useful in explaining disparately high rates of psychological distress among younger sexual minorities. The purpose of this study is to test a hypothesized structural relationship between two minority stressors—internalized heterosexism and concealment of sexual orientation—and consequent psychological distress among a sample of 2,349 lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults aged 50 to 95 years old. Structural equation modeling indicates that concealment has a nonsignificant direct effect on psychological distress but a significant indirect effect that is mediated through internalized heterosexism; the effect of concealment is itself concealed. This may explain divergent results regarding the role of concealment in psychological distress in other studies, and the implications will be discussed.     

Siblings, child labor, and schooling in Nicaragua and Guatemala

This paper explores empirically within-household gender and sibling differences in child labor, domestic work, and schooling of Guatemalan and Nicaraguan children. The main results show that older boys spend more time engaged in market and domestic work, whereas older girls spend more time in domestic work than their younger siblings. These results are independent of whether the younger sibling is a boy or a girl, which suggests that there is no substitution within the household of younger for older siblings in market and domestic work. This paper’s findings show the relevance of domestic work and gender differentials in children’s allocation of time in developing countries.     

Changing Residence: Comparative Perspectives on its Relationship to Age,Sex, and Marital Status

Change of usual dwelling unit (house, flat, etc.) during a fixed period of time is the common denominator to measuring the amount of spatial mobility within different countries. Around 1980 or 1981, the percentage of population who moved from one dwelling unit to another in one year was over 19 per cent in New Zealand, 17–18 per cent in the United States, Canada, and Australia, 9–10 per cent in Great Britain, Sweden, Japan and France, 7–8 per cent in the Netherlands and Belgium, and 6 per cent in Ireland. Evaluation of ‘age schedules’ of local and non-local movement reveals especially high mobility among U.S. children, and a narrowing of mobility differences for older people between countries, particularly over local distances. Life-table techniques help to quantify the amount of mobility associated with different marital statuses, and bring into focus some of the sequelae of these statuses for men and women in different countries.     

Life Satisfaction of Middle-Aged and Older Chinese: The Role of Health and Health Insurance

The Chinese government has launched a series of health reforms to establish universal health insurance coverage, particularly for vulnerable groups, including middle-aged and older adults. However, the current public health insurance system is highly fragmented, consisting of different programs with different levels of premiums and benefits. We analyse whether the universal health insurance system increases the life satisfaction of middle-aged and older Chinese people and to what extent the type of health insurance affects the life satisfaction of this group. Our study is based on data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Chinese aged 45 and above, in 2011, 2013, and 2015. We find that the life satisfaction of middle-aged and older adults does not depend on having any health insurance coverage but varies with the type of health insurance coverage, controlling for potential confounding variables such as health status, occupation, hukou status, and other demographic variables. Individuals covered by the most generous program, the Government Medical Insurance, reported a higher life satisfaction. In comparison, individuals covered by the Urban Employee Medical Insurance, the Urban Resident Medical Insurance, and the New Rural Cooperative Scheme reported a lower life satisfaction by 0.155, 0.106, and 0.112 standard deviations, respectively. Our results suggest that establishing a more equitable health insurance system should be the next step in health reforms in China.