Dissolution of Associational Life? Testing the Individualization and Informalization Hypotheses on Leisure Activities in The Netherlands Between 1975 and 2005

In this paper we examine whether individualization and informalization processes have occurred in the field of leisure in The Netherlands, by analyzing the social context of a wide range of activities between 1975 and 2005. We find that the choice of a particular leisure context is dependent on education, gender, year of birth, age and time pressure. We find evidence for informalization, but—contrary to popular belief—not for individualization. The informalization trend follows a pattern of cohort replacement, and is also caused by a rise in the average education level in the population. Our findings imply that research on civil society, community and social capital should not only be concerned with membership rates, but also with participation in alternative social contexts.     

Geography of European Life Satisfaction

The vast majority of studies analyze life satisfaction at individual and/or country level. This study contributes with analysis of life satisfaction at the (sub-national) province level across multiple countries. The purpose of this study is to call attention to spatial aspects of life satisfaction. Literature does not discuss the fact that life satisfaction in one province may be related to life satisfaction in other provinces. This study shows that there are well-defined happiness clusters in Europe, but also some outliers.     

Assessing the Use of the Family Affluence Scale as Socioeconomic Indicators for Researching Health Inequalities in Taiwan Adolescents

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Family Affluence Scale (FAS) and explored the relationship between FAS and health in a general adolescent population of Taiwan. Our data was obtained from a 2009 school-based survey. In total, 3,368 students (1,741 boys, 1,627 girls) in grades 6–10 in Kinmen County, Taiwan completed a modified WHO Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) questionnaire. Indicators of the family’s social position were their parents’ occupation and education. Indicators of material affluence were number of cars, number of holiday travel, whether the participant had his or her own room and number of computers (FAS items). A higher proportion of the participants completed the four family affluence items than their parents’ occupation and education items (≧98% vs. 90% and 88%; respectively). Analysis of the FAS showed a moderate internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.35). The associations between the FAS scores and parental occupation and education were moderate (P < .001). Consistent gradients were found for the association between FAS and positive health and health promoting behaviours. In conclusion, the Taiwan version of the FAS had a high completion rate and moderate internal reliability and external validity. The clear associations between the FAS and health indicators confirm the findings of previous studies and suggest that the FAS can be used as an additional measure of socioeconomic status among Taiwan adolescents.     

Outcomes of Orphanhood in Ethiopia: A Mixed Methods Study

The paper addresses the question of whether parental death always has a strongly negative effect on children’s outcomes using quantitative and qualitative data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia. It investigates the validity of potential mediating factors identified by other studies in Sub-Saharan Africa using data from the whole sample (n = 973) and explores these processes in-depth through the experiences of three orphans in one community in Addis Ababa. The paper concludes that the outcomes of orphans and non-orphans in poor communities are not significantly different, supporting the need to address vulnerability at a societal level. Nonetheless, specific groups, for example, older female children who have lost their mothers, may face particular risks that should be addressed with targeted interventions.     

The Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi-Report: Old Wine in New Skins? Views from a Social Indicators Perspective

The recently published report by the “Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress” is being discussed and commented from the point of view of social indicators research, which addresses issues of the measurement of well-being and social progress since the 1960s. Some of the recommendations made by the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi—Report thus seem to be well known and all but new and innovative from a social indicators perspective. It is also argued that the report ignores some of the available approaches, instruments and ongoing activities to measure and monitor well-being and the quality of life, which go well beyond GDP, such as e.g. social reports. The Commission’s report is nevertheless considered a major step forward towards a considerably improved measurement of well-being and social progress.     

“A La Recherche Du” Quality of Life

This essay examines the stages of inquiry when we seek to formulate quality of life in an era before our own. There arises the question of the extent to which today’s formulation of quality of life can be applied to an era far removed from our own. Implicitly, there is the nature of the time interval, T₁···T_n, and the causal significance of intervening events. Data of a numerical sort can be hard to retrieve due to fires, wars, and mishandling. Quantitative data can be found in censuses and military records. Information in its raw form is referred to here as protodata. Figure 1 provides a schematic overview of the search for quality of life by subjective and objective modes of inquiry.     

The Short-Term Impact of Involuntary Migration in China’s Three Gorges: A Prospective Study

The aim of this study is to measure the short-term impact of involuntary migration resulting from China’s Three Gorges Dam project on the 1.3 million persons being displaced. We focus on the social, economic, and mental and physical health impact using three sets of indicators. Using a prospective research design, we gathered information about these indicators from a sample of migrants first before they moved and then again after they moved. Changes in the migrants’ wellbeing during the period, when benchmarked to corresponding changes computed for a control group of non-migrants, are attributed to the impact of involuntary migration. Our results showed that although the displaced have enjoyed a relative gain in housing quality, most of the changes were in the negative direction and many of such negative changes were statistically significant.     

Deprivation,Social Exclusion and Subjective Well-Being

This paper aims at investigating empirically the relationship between self-declared satisfaction with life and an individual’s well-being as measured by the indices of deprivation and social exclusion proposed in the income distribution literature. Results on European countries show that life satisfaction decreases with an increase in deprivation and exclusion after controlling for individual’s income, relative income and other influential factors in a multivariate setting.     

The Blame Game

Conventions consist of conventionally accepted reasons for dereliction, deviation, distinction, or good fortune. Their use facilitates coordination of interpersonal effort through appeal to shared understandings that emerge from the push and pull of social interaction, but then constrain further rounds of that interaction. The use of conventions differs from three other well defined and widely used forms of reason giving: codes, technical accounts, and stories. All four do relational work, but conventions operate most easily and effectively when participants in social relations are simply confirming the character of those relations rather than establishing them anew, contesting them, terminating them, or transforming them. In those cases, participants are more likely to employ codes, technical accounts, or stories.     

Merton’s Sociology 215-216 Course

For many years, Robert K. Merton taught a famous, year-long graduate course at Columbia called The Analysis of Social Structures. His lectures have been recalled for their dazzling intellectual effects by those who took the course, but none of these former students has described what Merton actually said in specific lectures. I do this now, using my extensive lecture notes from 1952–53 when I took it for credit, and from later years when I sat in on the course. The core of the course at that time was Merton’s Paradigm for Functional Analysis in Sociology. Each concept in the paradigm—subjective dispositions, objective consequences, functional requirements, structural constraints, etc.—was elaborated in its relationship to a wide variety of sociological problems in the published theoretical and empirical literature. I also recount how Merton’s relationship to Talcott Parsons appeared to us in the course.