The Relationship Between EU Indicators of Persistent and Current Poverty

The current poverty rate and the persistent poverty rate are both included in the European Union’s (EU's) portfolio of primary indicators of social inclusion. We show that there is a near-linear relationship between these two indicators across EU countries drawing on empirical analysis of EU-SILC and ECHP data. Using a prototypical model of poverty dynamics, we explain how the near-linear relationship arises and show how the model can be used to predict persistent poverty rates from current poverty information. In the light of the results, we discuss whether the EU's persistent poverty measure and the design of EU-SILC longitudinal data collection require modification.     

Social Cohesion and the Labour Market: Societal Regimes of Civic Attitudes and Labour Market Regimes

The aim of this paper is to test the connections between the indicators used in the literature on social cohesion, which usually reflect ‘general’ values or behaviours, and indicators specific to a particular space, namely the labour market. A key question is the stability of the social cohesion’s indicators when moving from a societal level to the labour market. Based on data from the World Value Survey, and following a restrictive definition of social cohesion, a comparison is done, for European countries. Examination of the situation in the two spheres makes it possible to identify more or less homogeneous groups of countries and also to point to instabilities. ‘Regimes’ of social cohesion begin to emerge. As in most analyses, the Nordic countries (excluding Finland) have high scores in all the dimensions. Conversely, most of the new EU member states from the former Eastern bloc have low scores, particularly in the horizontal dimension of trust between individuals.     

European Identity: An Analysis of Measurement Equivalence Across Countries and Mode of Data Collection in the European Values Survey 2017/2018

The study of European Identity has gradually become central to social sciences in the past decades. The enlargement of the European Union, as well as the economic crises from a decade ago called into question the very idea of Europe as a polity, the legitimacy of the European project and the homogeneity of the European culture. Although many analyses study European Identity, most research focuses on the definition and measurement of European Identity within the EU member states. Due to the interest in European Identity within EU borders on the one hand, and the lack of comparable data on the other, the European Identity of all Europeans is rarely explored. To address this gap, we investigate the common understanding of Europeanness among those living in Europe. We define European Identity as ethnic/cultural identity as opposed to civic identity and analyse the measurement equivalence of the scale tapping European ethnic/cultural identity fielded by European Values Survey in 2017 in 30 European countries. The results point out to a common understanding of Europeanness among those living in Europe, in ethnic terms, not in cultural ones. Methodologically, the analyses proved that the scale is suitable for cross-national comparisons among countries, but the comparability should be refrained to comparing means of the scale across countries. The mode of data collection does not impact on the comparability of the scale in four of the six countries that used mixed modes of data collection.

     

Does Trust Mean the Same for Migrants and Natives? Testing Measurement Models of Political Trust with Multi-group Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Political trust is seen as an important attribute in contemporary representative democracy. Political trust can cause social trust, foster associational life and make the efficient implementation of policy easier. Political trust can also be seen as a measure of political integration of migrants in Europe. However, if we want to measure this, we need to know for sure that we measure the same concept in all countries and among all cultural groups under research. This paper describes and tests four (existing) models of political trust. We find that there are multiple dimensions of political trust that can be modeled in a structural equation model. Furthermore, we research the cross-cultural equivalence of this measurement model in 22 European Union countries among natives, EU-migrants and non-EU migrants in these countries. Our results indicate that we can compare levels of political trust within countries pretty well, however, we should be careful comparing levels of political trust between EU countries since full scalar equivalence could not be reached. On a substantive note, we find quite some differences between the EU countries concerning the political trust natives have and we find diverging results concerning the migrants. In most countries we did not find a significant difference between migrants and natives. However, when the difference was significant, migrants showed higher levels of political trust in most instances.     

Construction, Validation and Application of the Measurement of Social Cohesion in 47 European Countries and Regions

This paper aims to present a theoretically based, multidimensional and comparable measurement of social cohesion, applicable in 47 European countries/regions using the most recent micro-level data of the European Value Study (EVS) from 2008 that build upon the previous research conducted on the EVS data from 1999 covering 33 countries. The analysis is conducted in five steps. In the first part, we create a set of measurable intermediate indicators that correspond to the social cohesion dimensions suggested by the theory. In the second part, we verify whether these indicators empirically corroborate the multidimensional structure of the concept proposed by the theory. The third part examines whether the obtained intermediate indicators of social cohesion form the same constructs across countries and whether they can yield a cross-country equivalent measure of social cohesion. In the fourth step, composite scores of all dimensions of social cohesion are calculated for all analysed countries/regions. The last step shows a practical application of the obtained indices and compares levels of social cohesion in six broader geographical regions of Europe to demonstrate the applicability of the measurement in comparative research.     

Measuring Employment Arrangements in the European Labour Force: A Typological Approach

In this article employment quality in the EU27 is investigated by means of a typological approach, based on several features of the employment conditions and relations characterising jobs. The analyses are drawing on data from the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey. Results of Latent Class Cluster Analyses show that it is empirically and theoretically possible to reduce a multitude of factors determining the quality of employment into five different types of jobs regarding their employment quality: SER-like jobs, instrumental jobs, precarious unsustainable jobs, precarious intensive jobs and portfolio jobs. These five types of jobs are strongly related with important covariates such as the socio-demographic profile of workers, organisation level features and indicators of the intrinsic nature of work tasks. Moreover, they are clearly distributed differently between countries within the EU27. The findings from this innovative approach towards the quality of employment are discussed in terms of the implications for the measurement of contemporary employment arrangements in Europe.     

Construct Validation and Application of a Common Measure of Social Cohesion in 33 European Countries

The aim of the paper is to assess the construct validation of a multidimensional measure of social cohesion which is well theoretically grounded and has an equivalent/comparable interpretation across all European countries. Up-to-now published research on social cohesion is deficient in either one or both of these important aspects. This paper attempts to cover this gap. The task is accomplished in two steps. In the first step, we conceptualize social cohesion, flowing mainly from Bernard and Chan’s definitions of social cohesion. Based on this theoretical framework we operationalize social cohesion and derive a set of intermediate indicators in the data. By return we verify whether these indicators empirically reflect/corroborate the multidimensional structure of the concept proposed by the theory. In the second step, we examine whether the obtained intermediate indicators of social cohesion form the same constructs across countries and whether they can yield a cross country equivalent measure of social cohesion. To test the validity of the theory we use multidimensional scaling and confirmatory factor analysis. Both models are able to verify the equivalence of the structural results between groups (i.e. countries). Confirmatory factor analysis produces further meaningful measures of these constructs. The analyses are based on the data from the 1999 European Values Study (EVS). The outcomes of the analyses reveal that, firstly, the existence of the multifaceted construct of social cohesion suggested by the theory has been corroborated by empirical analysis of the EVS data (i.e. social cohesion consists of components of formal and substantial relationships and political and socio-cultural domains). Secondly, the proposed constructs measuring social cohesion are equivalent across all analysed countries and thus allow the calculation of internationally comparable national scores of social cohesion. Application of the aggregate measures at the country level will illustrate the interest of the approach for further research.     

Challenges in Constructing a Multi-dimensional European Job Quality Index

There are few attempts to benchmark job quality in a multi-dimensional perspective across Europe. Against this background, we have created a synthetic job quality index (JQI) for the EU27 countries in an attempt to shed light on the question of how European countries compare with each other and how they are developing over time in terms of job quality. Taking account of the multi-faceted nature of job quality, the JQI is compiled on the basis of six sub-indices which cover the most important dimensions of job quality as identified in the literature. The paper addresses the methods used to construct the JQI and make it comparable over time. It presents the results for 2010 and briefly addresses changes over time to illustrate the potential and limits of a multidimensional European JQI. It also considers alternative specifications for various sub-indices and tests for the impact of changes in the indicators used on the outcomes. Overall, the findings appear to confirm the feasibility and desirability of attempting to assess job quality by means of a composite index that can be periodically updated. The key strength of this approach is the possibility to monitor and benchmark EU countries’ overall job quality performances and the outcomes in six sub-dimensions of job quality and compare them with each other, across gender and over time. At the same time, the limitations of such a composite index need to be borne in mind. The most important challenges are the availability (over time), timeliness and periodicity, comparability and disaggregation of data.     

The Prospects of Catching up for New EU Members Lessons for the Accession Countries to the European Union from Previous Enlargements

With EU membership, politicians aswell as citizens in the accession countrieshope to achieve improvements in livingconditions and – at least in the long run –to catch up with the West European societies.Catch-up modernization of the less advancedmember states is also an ``official' goal of EUpolicy. Expert opinions about the prospects forsuccess, however, vary widely. In this paper, ageneral model for how EU policy influencesquality of life in less well-off membercountries is presented. An analysis of formerenlargements – the cohesion countries Ireland,Greece, Portugal, and Spain – reveals that EUintegration obviously facilitates processes ofcatch up but does not guarantee them. This isdemonstrated by using indicators coveringdifferent aspects of quality of life, percapita income (material living conditions),social protection ratios (general quality ofsociety), and life satisfaction (subjectivewell-being). Bearing in mind their particulareconomic and social conditions and theirheterogeneity, the prospects of the futuremember states are discussed.     

Is Inequality a Latent Construct? An Assessment of Economic Inequality Indicators and Their Relation with Social Cohesion in Europe

In this article, we analyse the relation between different economic inequality indicators and social cohesion. Previous research usually narrows down economic inequality to income inequality, or distinguishes several types of economic inequality. Little attention has until now been given to how different aspects of economic inequality might be related to each other and can have an effect on social cohesion. This article analyses several indicators of economic inequality and makes a distinction between indicators measuring income inequality, poverty, economic strain and unequal distributions of wealth. Arguing that these indicators represent different aspects of inequality, we hypothesise that they cannot be reduced to one latent concept of inequality and have specific relations with social cohesion. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis. This resulted in two different factors: one associated with economic hardship, and one associated with imbalances in market outcomes. This would imply that inequality indicators can be classified into two underlying concepts. Secondly, we related the factor scores of the two latent concepts to the social cohesion indicators via regression analyses. This paper focuses on European countries and uses pooled data from the European Social Survey (period 2006–2012), in combination with macro-level data drawn from the OECD, Eurostat and the World Bank. The results demonstrate that the strength of the link between inequality and citizens’ attitudes depends on the type of inequality indicator we analyse: only the factor economic deprivation can be significantly linked to social cohesion.     

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety.     

Poverty in Ireland in Comparative European Perspective

In this paper we seek to put Irish poverty rates in a comparative European context. We do so in a context whereby the Irish economic boom and EU enlargement have led to increasing reservations being expressed regarding rates deriving from the EU ‘at risk of poverty’ indicator. Our comparative analysis reports findings for both overall levels of poverty and variation by household reference person characteristics for this indicator and a consistent poverty measure for Ireland, the UK and five smaller European countries spanning a range of welfare regimes. Our findings demonstrate that the distinctiveness of Ireland’s situation lies not in the overall levels of poverty per se but in the very high penalties associated with being in a household where the household reference person is a lone parent or excluded from the labour market.     

Political Distrust and Social Capital in Europe and the USA

Levels of rising political distrust in the USA and parts of Europe attracted political scientists’ attention in the 1990s, and urged them to look at possible consequences of this phenomenon for the functioning of democracies and social life. Approximately during the same period, from a sociological viewpoint, social capital theorists started studying the effects of declining social capital on political and economic life. In this article, we looked at the relationship between political distrust and social capital from an interdisciplinary perspective. We studied the relationship in six European countries from three regions (North-West, South and East), and the USA, and we were interested in the question of whether this relationship varies over the regions, or whether it is approximately the same everywhere. We used ISPP data from the 2004 wave, which included a range of social capital indicators and political distrust items. Social capital was subdivided into four dimensions, namely, networks (membership of organizations), interpersonal or social trust, social norms (citizenship norms), and linking social capital (political activities). First we studied the effect of political distrust on these four dimensions of social capital, while controlling for other variables such as political efficacy, political interest and a set of socio-structural background variables. One of our main findings was that the only significant effect of political distrust we found throughout all countries was a negative effect on one dimension of social capital, namely, interpersonal trust: the more people distrust politicians and people in government, the less they trust other people in general, even when controlled for all other variables. The reverse relationship led us to the same conclusion: the more people tend to trust people in general, the less they distrust politics, a result we found in all countries. This finding refutes the claim that there is no or either only a very weak relationship between political and social trust, as some have strongly argued before. Other important political attitudes connected to social capital were political interest and political efficacy, and for political distrust it was external efficacy. Significant socio-economic factors were religiousness and educational level for membership of voluntary organizations, educational level for interpersonal trust, religiousness for citizenship norms, and educational level and age for political activities. The reciprocal relationship was strongest in the USA and North-Western Europe, as were the explained variances of our (more extensive) regression models. In Southern and Eastern Europe other factors appear to be at work which influence both social capital and political distrust.     

A system of social indicators for the CMEA countries and for Hungary

This paper discusses the reasons for the growing demand for social indicators in Hungary and in other European socialist countries. A brief history of the construction of a system of social indicators within the framework of the Council of Mutual Economic Aid is given. The subsystems and the main indicators are described. The present practice and the problems of social classifications used in the social indicator systems and in social surveys are treated. In addition to the existing data sources of social indicators, sample surveys were considered to be necessary to provide a full and detailed view of Hungarian society. In addition to objective indicators, recently, subjective indicators have also been collected.     

Rising Economic Prosperity and Social Quality the Case of New Member States of the European Union

This paper considers whether rising economic prosperity in the New Member States of the European Union since joining the EU is also reflected in better a quality of life and what constitutes a better quality of society for the citizens of these countries. The paper contributes to the debate about the relationship between economic conditions and subjective well-being by showing that the factors that contribute to the latter have not only changed with economic growth but that subjective life satisfaction has also improved. Here we consider how this relationship can be explained by using the Social Quality model to measure the quality of society. We look specifically at the New Member States of the European Union (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) using the European Quality of Life Surveys for 2003 and 2007. This covers a period during which the economic conditions of these societies improved and they modernised. The social quality model explains a great deal of the variance in life satisfaction and helps us to show that as well as economic factors, other aspects of the quality of society, such as social integration and empowerment, are also important. We argue that economic and social factors have to be understood as interacting with other aspects of society if we seek to understand the quality of society.     

Nowcasting Indicators of Poverty Risk in the European Union: A Microsimulation Approach

The at-risk-of-poverty rate is one of the three indicators used for monitoring progress towards the Europe 2020 poverty and social exclusion reduction target. Timeliness of this indicator is critical for monitoring the effectiveness of policies. However, due to complicated nature of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) poverty risk estimates are published with a 2–3 years delay. This paper presents a method that can be used to estimate (“nowcast”) the current at-risk-of-poverty rate for the European Union (EU) countries based on EU-SILC microdata from a previous period. The EU tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD is used for this purpose in combination with up to date macro-level statistics. The method is validated by using EU-SILC data for 2007 incomes to estimate at-risk-of-poverty rates for 2008–2012 and to compare the predictions with actual EU-SILC and other external statistics. The method is tested on eight EU countries which are among those experiencing the most volatile economic conditions within the period: Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania.     

Travel and the ‘Freedom of Movement’: Racialised Encounters and Experiences Amongst Ethnic Minority Tourists in the EU

This paper presents a conceptual‐based discussion dealing with social and geo‐political concerns associated with the tourism experiences and travel encounters of ethnic minority citizens living in member‐states of the European Union (EU). Although EU legislation emphasises that its citizens have freedom of movement throughout member‐states, the prevalence of racialised situations transpiring within, across and beyond EU borders suggests that this commitment is socio‐politically ambiguous. The popular hysteria that has developed towards increased immigration from non‐EU countries extends to those minorities who have legal status of entry, residency and/or citizenship – as they too are visibly different from Europe's white majorities. The paper thus reflects on ways in which the 11 September 2001 attacks in America have had a detrimental impact on people's tourism and travel experiences, particularly in instances where individuals have been treated with high levels of suspicion from institutional bodies and ethnic (white) majorities. The work firmly emphasises that racial prejudice, institutional racism and xeno‐racist practices restrict ethnic minority citizens from appreciating cosmopolitan‐based tourism experiences and engaging in congenial exchanges with other European cultures and societies. One of the main contentions asserts that racialised movements limit ethnic minority citizens from achieving full rights to social and (multi)cultural forms of citizenship. The conclusion suggests ways in which researchers ought to respond to the study of tourism and racism within the EU.     

Structure of National Perceptions of Social Needs Across EU Countries

Back in 1975, the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers defined the poor as “individuals or families whose resources are so small as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life of the Member State in which they live”. This widely quoted definition leaves room for discussion about what can be considered a “minimum acceptable way of life” in different countries and thus also whether national perceptions of minimum standards vary from one country to the next. The paper explores this latter issue by exploiting the first EU dataset allowing a comparative analysis of the items which citizens in the different Member States consider to be necessary for people to have an “acceptable” standard of living in the country where they live. It assesses the (in)variance of the structure of the perception of social needs between countries on the basis of an extension of the multidimensional scaling (MDS) method, and shows a high level of congruence between the 27 national patterns. An important consequence of this result is that it supports the approach which consists of measuring deprivation on the basis of a same set of (validated) items across all the Member States.