Disasters,local organizations,and poverty in the USA, 1998 to 2015

Disaster research has drawn attention to how natural hazards transform local organizational dynamics and social inequalities. It has yet to examine how these processes unfold together over time. We begin to fill this gap with a county-level, longitudinal analysis that examines how property damages from natural hazards correlate not only with local shifts in poverty a year later but also counts of for-profit as well as bonding and bridging social capital organizations. Results show that poverty and all organizational types tend to increase with local hazard damages. They also show that poverty tends to increase most where the number of bonding social capital organizations is also increasing. This pattern suggests a Janus-faced dynamic in which bonding, or more inwardly focused, organizations that arise after disaster may end up inadvertently marginalizing those in more dire need.     

Fifty Years After the Social Indicators Movement: Has the Promise Been Fulfilled?

In spite of its currency both in academic research and political rhetoric, there are numerous attempts to define and conceptualize the social cohesion concept but there has been paid little attention to provide a rigorous and empirically tested definition. There are even fewer studies that address social cohesion in a framework of cross-cultural validation of the indicators testing the equivalence of the factorial structure across countries. Finally, as far as we know there is no study that attempt to provide an empirically tested multilevel definition of social cohesion specifying a Multilevel Structural Equation Model. This study aims to cover this gap. First, we provide a theoretical construct of social cohesion taking into account not only its multidimensionality but also its multilevel structure. In the second step, to test the validity of this theoretical construct, we perform a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis in order to verify if the conceptual structure suggested in first step holds. In addition, we test the cross-level structural equivalence and the measurement invariance of the model in order to verify if the same multilevel model of social cohesion holds across the 29 countries analysed. In the final step, we specify a second-order multilevel CFA model in order to identify the existence of a general factor that can be called “social cohesion” operating in society that accounts for the surface phenomena that we observe.     

Time in the Development of Indicators on Sustainable Wellbeing: A Local Experiment in Developing Alternative Indicators

This paper is a theoretical and methodological study on the topics of distribution of and competition between time spans dedicated to social activities in the development of sustainable well-being indicators. This article seeks to answer the following question: why and how should we take into account social time in the development of alternative indicators? To bring to light the complex relationship between well-being, sustainability and people’s relationship to time, this article draws on an experiment aimed at developing Regional Sustainable Well-being Indicators (Indicateurs de Bien-être Soutenable Territorialisés—IBEST), which took place in the Grenoble urban area. This experiment was based on two methodologies; the first one being a quantitative survey, and the second one being a series of qualitative interviews coupled with a participatory approach. One of the datasheet indicators developed following this methodological crossover is the activity times balancing indicator, which allows us to take into consideration the pressure affecting time spent on social activities (work, leisure, families and civic engagement).     

Country-Level Investment in Cultural Opportunity Structures. A Potential Source of Health Differences Between 21 European Countries

Individual’s participation in cultural activities may positively affect health through a pathway mediated by social capital. We examine whether country-level investment in cultural opportunity structures was associated with between-country differences in self-rated health and, if so, whether these associations were mediated by citizens’ confidence in societal institutions, i.e., by institutional trust, regarded as a dimension of social capital. For 24,887 respondents in the European Social Survey, 2006, data on self-rated health, institutional trust (individual-level and country-level), and sociodemographic variables were linked with statistics-based country-level data on 10 indicators of cultural opportunity structures and mediator variables (gross domestic product (GDP), Gini index, and welfare state regime). Over and above the sociodemographics, six cultural indicators contributed to between-country health differences in logistic multilevel regression analysis: the percentage of arts students, the RC index, the percentage of writers and creative artists of total employment, exports of cultural goods, imports of cultural goods, and the number of feature films produced per capita. Controlling, furthermore, for trust, and country-level mediators, only imports of cultural goods contributed to between-country differences in health. No associations with other cultural indicators remained after controlling for GDP or welfare state regime. Institutional trust may partially mediate the significance of cultural investments for self-rated health. However, both cultural investment and trust may be concomitants of general prosperity and welfare policies. Future studies should investigate whether the countries’ welfare policies influence the transformation of cultural investment into institutional trust and which types of indicators best depict associations between investments and health.     

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.     

Quality of Life in Intentional Communities

The present study was initiated to investigate levels and predictors of wellbeing among inhabitants of intentional communities (ICs). An anonymous, Internet-based questionnaire was distributed to US and Canadian ICs. Responses were obtained from 913 members. Wellbeing was measured by the widely used satisfaction with life scale (SWLS). Hierarchical linear regression analyses were run to test the predictive validity of Social support, Identity fusion, Meaning in life, Community satisfaction and Life change, and Religious activity above and beyond demographic variables and personality traits. Mean scores on the SWLS were estimated to 5.27 and 5.47 (1–7 scale) for men and women, respectively. The full model explained 41.4% of the variance for men and 38.2% for women. Personality explained 13.4 (men) and 14.4% (women) of the variation, while demographic variables only had a minor impact. Overall, presence of Meaning in life and Social support were the most important predictors. The IC inhabitants reported wellbeing on par with the highest scores previously published. The findings support the contention that sustainability, in the form of a communal lifestyle of low ecological footprint, may be promoted without forfeiting wellbeing.     

Job Insecurity: Differential Effects of Subjective and Objective Measures on Life Satisfaction Trajectories of Workers Aged 27–30 in Germany

Job insecurity has become increasingly evident in European countries in recent years. In Germany, legislation has increased insecurity through erosion of the standard employment relationship. Fixed-term contracts are central to definitions of insecurity based on atypical or precarious work but there is still limited understanding of what creates insecurity and how it affects workers. Drawing on Bourdieu’s thesis that “insecurity is everywhere”, the relationships between subjective and objective measures of insecurity are examined for their impact on the 5-year trajectories of life satisfaction of men and women in the age group 27–30. Latent growth curve analysis of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for 2010–2014 highlights the adverse and lasting effects of subjective concerns about job insecurity on life satisfaction trajectories. This association cuts across educational groups, with far reaching implications as subjective concerns about job security permeate young worker’s lives well beyond the objective condition of being employed on a fixed-term contract.     

An Empirical Assessment of Households Livelihood Vulnerability: The Case of Rural Ghana

The recent years witnessed a sharp drop in China’s demographic dividend; therefore, some reform measures about China’s fertility policy have been adopted to optimize population structures and to maintain demographic dividend. However, our simulation results reveal that the new two-child fertility policy cannot effectively deal with population ageing, and that China’s fertility policy needs further adjustment. Specifically, we find that the new two-child fertility policy will deteriorate demographic dividend before 2050, through combination of simulation results and formula derivation. Aiming to stabilize demographic dividend at ideal range all the time, we build nonlinear integer programming model to propose an appropriate reforming path for China’s fertility policy. Then, we simulate and compare demographic developments under the proposed reforming path with those under three possible fertility policies: one-child, two-child and no fertility restriction, verifying that the proposed reforming path has better performance on stabilizing demographic dividend than these three fertility policies have. Finally, sensitivity analysis of upper bound of research interval is conducted to evaluate the effect of the upper bound on proposed reforming path. Based on these results, we suggest that China should continue to execute current strict fertility policy before 2032, then begin to relax it gradually especially during 2036–2041, and completely cancel fertility policy after 2065.