Happily ever after? Intrahousehold bargaining and the distribution of utility within marriage

Using a rich longitudinal data set of married couples from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study, this article seeks to uncover the intramarital allocation of experienced utility and its drivers. We find both substantial gains from marriage and effects of relative predicted earnings outside of marriage on relative gains from marriage. These findings are consistent with cooperative bargaining models and with models viewing individuals as having a demand for household production services by a spouse, with market forces influencing the price of such services. In addition, we find that men benefit more from marriage than women and that this gender gap is more pronounced for older couples. This is likely to be due to social norms and prescribed gender roles which are more prevalent within the older generation.     

Cross-national Comparison of the Quality of Life in Europe: Inventory of Surveys and Methods

The intention of this paper is to provide thescientific community with information onresearch carried out in the course of thecomparative research programme EuReporting – Towards a European System onSocial Reporting and Welfare Measurement. Thisresearch is being funded by the EuropeanCommission and is being conducted by researchteams throughout Europe. In this paper, we willreport on the findings of the research carriedout by the team in Vienna. The Vienneseresearch team is to assess the existing stockof comparative and cross-sectional surveys inthe field of social reporting and welfaremeasurement. Of concern here is not onlydocumentary work, but also the quality andcomparability of existing survey data. Thefocus of the Vienna project is upon suchcross-national and cross-sectional surveys asthe World Values Survey, the InternationalSocial Survey Programme, the Eurobarometer andthe New Democracies Barometer, as well asnational longitudinal studies.     

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.