http://repub.eur.nl/res/concept/jel-A14/ Recent publications classified by JEL Code A14 en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16537/ 2009-08-19T00:00:00Z Studies on the substitution thesis in advanced economies show scattered results: the impact of immigration on the wages and unemployment of lower-educated natives and immigrants varies strongly. In both studies on the substitution thesis itself, as well as studies on the unequal development of urban economies in post-industrialism, there are suggestions that this is because the substitution thesis is conditional on the type of urban economy. More specific, they indicate there is reason to expect that a strong service-centered urban economy yields more labour demand for the lower educated, which consequently mitigates the substitution between immigrants and natives or earlier waves of immigrants. The empirical validity of this expectation is tested by comparing the impact of immigration on the employment level of lower-educated urbanites between 22 Dutch metropolitan areas. The findings corroborate the central hypothesis: immigration leads to higher unemployment levels, but this impact is weaker in the most service-centered urban economies. Waal, J. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14871/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z If politicians and their advisers want to promote the well-being or happiness of citizens they have three ways to find out what they should do. (1) They can analyse the behaviour and the decisions of citizens to find out what they want, in other words: they can try to identify their “revealed preferences”. This is common practice in economics. (2) They can analyse the “stated preferences” of people as they express them explicitly in inquiries, referenda, polls and elections. (3) They can analyse the conditions that make people happy by comparing the conditions of people at different levels of happiness. Economists, like Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod, have an outspoken preference for the first option and they are sceptical about the third. Their argument is unbalanced because they are too critical about the authenticity and complexity of self-reported happiness and not critical enough about the authenticity and complexity of revealed preferences. Economists should appreciate the comparative advantages and additional value of each option and try to find optimal combinations with synergistic effects. Economists should appreciate happiness research as an option to assess the nature and magnitude of “externalities” within their own discipline. Ott, J.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14873/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Politici die het welzijn en het geluk van hun burgers willen vergroten hebben eigenlijk maar drie mogelijkheden om te bepalen wat ze dan moeten doen. (1) Ze kunnen het gedrag en de beslissingen van burgers analyseren om te zien wat die burgers belangrijk vinden; dat betekent dat ze zich richten op de kennelijke voorkeuren (“revealed preferences”). Het gaat dan vooral om economische beslissingen, kopen, verkopen, sparen en investeren. Dit is dan ook de methode die in de economische wetenschap wordt toegepast. (2) Ze kunnen zich ook richten op de expliciet uitgesproken voorkeuren (“stated preferences”); dat wil zeggen de voorkeuren zoals die expliciet worden verwoord in opiniepeilingen, referenda en verkiezingen. (3) Ze kunnen bezien onder welke omstandigheden burgers zelf aangeven dat ze zich gelukkig voelen (“zelf-gerapporteerd geluk”). In dit artikel laat ik zien dat laatstgenoemde methodiek een bijzondere toegevoegde waarde heeft; ik doe dat eerst in algemene zin en vervolgens aan de hand van een voorbeeld: het universele belang van een competente overheid voor het geluk in landen. Ott, J.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14874/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z What can you do if you think you are not as happy as happy could be, and you can spend some money? One option: visit the experts around the world, collect their advice, and make a film about your experiences. That is what Line Hatland did. Her film is a summary of happiness research, nicely visualized with a good sense of humour. The film is a pleasant way to make people familiar with happiness research, and watching it together can be a good start for a discussion about happiness as such. Ott, J.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14877/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z This study is about survey questions on happiness using verbal response options, such as 'very happy' and 'fairly happy'. The aim is to estimate what degrees of happiness are denoted by such terms in different questions and languages. These degrees are expressed in numerical values on a 0 to 10 scale, which are then used to compute 'transformed' means and standard deviations. Native speakers read survey questions on happiness that have been used in their country. For each question separately, they rate the relative value of each of the response options in their language. They do that using an electronic ‘Scale Interval Recorder’. On their computer screen, participants see a vertical bar scale that they can partition into sections by shifting separation lines. The response options are presented next to the scale and move with the bars. Their task is to move the separation lines until they feel that the intervals on the scale correspond with the degree of happiness denoted by each of the verbal response options. The aim is to cover 74 languages. This study will allow a better use of the available survey data on happiness Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14878/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Human societies cannot exist without human beings and human beings cannot exist without a society. Still there can be a conflict of interest between the individual and society and there are historical examples of societies prospering at the cost of its members, and examples of people thriving at the cost of society. The degree of conflict or synergy will vary over time. This begs the question: How it is today? To what extent does the well-being of contemporary nations go together with the well-being of their inhabitants? In a system theoretical perspective one can distinguish four kinds of being ‘well’: 1) good external conditions, 2) appropriate internal functioning, 3) positive external effects and 4) system maintenance. At the level of nations these aspects of well-being cannot be meaningfully combined in one measure, hence each aspect is measured separately. At the level of individuals a fairly comprehensive measure is how long and happily people live. Data were available for 92 nations in the early 2000s. Analysis of these data shows much correspondence between the well-being of contemporary nations and average well-being of citizens in these nations. The well-being of citizens, as measured with Happy Life Years, appears to be strongly correlated with: a) the position of the nation in the world system, b) the functioning of public institutions in the nation, c) the productivity of the nation, and d) the stability of the system. There are plausible explanations for this connection, one is that modern society fits human nature fairly well and another that happy citizens make a better society. So, there is no great conflict between the individual and society, at least not at this moment. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14879/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Subjective well-being is no great issue in sociology; the subject is not mentioned in sociological textbooks (a notable exception is Nolan & Lenski, 2004) and is rarely discussed in sociological journals. This absence has many reasons: pragmatic, ideological, and theoretical. To begin with pragmatic reasons: Sociologists are more interested in what people do than in how they feel. Their main objective is to explain social behavior, and subjective well-being is, at best, a variable in that context. A related point is that sociology is about collectivities, whereas subjective well-being is an individual-level concept. A further pragmatic reason is that sociologists earn their living dealing with social problems. So, if they look at well-being at all, they focus on "ill-being" in the first place. Next there are ideo-logical reasons. Many sociologists are committed to notions of objective well-being, such as social equality and social cohesion. They are therefore not eager to investigate how people actually feel in such conditions and often ignore research results that contradict their favored views. When people appear to feel subjectively good in conditions deemed to be objectively bad, the discrepancy is easily disposed of as "desirability bias" or "false consciousness." Lastly, there are theoretical reasons. As we will see below, sociologists tend to think of subjective well-being as a mere idea that depends on social comparison with variable standards and that is therefore a whimsical state of mind, not worth pursuing and hence not worth studying. Nevertheless, the subject of subjective well-being is not entirely absent in sociology. Job satisfaction is a common topic in the sociology of work, marital satisfaction is a well-known variable in the sociology of family, and life satisfaction is a regular theme in the sociology of aging. Recently subjective well-being has also become a theme in comparative sociology and in social indicators research. I have reviewed this sociological literature elsewhere (Veenhoven, 2006a). Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14880/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Is happiness good for your health? This common notion is tested in a synthetic analysis of 30 follow-up studies on happiness and longevity. It appears that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations. So, happiness does not cure illness but it does protect against becoming ill. The effect of happiness on longevity in healthy populations is remarkably strong. The size of the effect is comparable to that of smoking or not. If so, public health can also be promoted by policies that aim at greater happiness of a greater number. That can be done by strengthening individual life-abilities and by improving the livability of the social environment. Some policies are proposed. Both ways of promoting health through happiness require more research on conditions for happiness. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14882/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are three main classic Chinese philosophy schools, which all deal with the question of how one should live. In this paper we first review these ancient recommendations and next consider whether they promise a happy life in present day society. Recommended behaviours found in the ancient texts are compared with conditions for happiness as observed in present day empirical investigations. Classic Confucianism appears to offer the most apt advice for finding happiness in present day society, in particular because it recommends that one should be involved in real life. Classic Taoist advice is second best, its strong point is that it advises us against too much social conformism and bookishness. The advice given by classic Buddhists is better not followed in modern society. Veenhoven, R. Guoqing, Z. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14883/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Cross-national research on happiness is soaring, but doubts about the comparability of happiness remain. One source of doubt is the possibility of cultural measurement bias. Another source of doubt is the theory that happiness depends on standards of the good life that differ widely across cultures. These qualms are checked using the available data on differences in average happiness across nations. It appears that cultural measurement bias is modest at best. The data show meaningful links with living conditions in nations. It is concluded that happiness is a good indicator of the livability of society. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14884/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z Happiness is rising on the political agenda and this calls for measures of how well nations perform in creating great happiness for a great number, analogous to measures of success in creating wealth, such as GDP. Happiness is defined as subjective enjoyment of one’s life as-a-whole and this can be measured using self-reports. Question on happiness are currently used in large scale surveys of the general population in nations. As a result we have now comparable data on happiness in 95 contemporary nations and time-series of 25 years and longer on 11 developed nations. These data can be aggregated in different ways: If the aim is simply greater happiness for a greater number of citizens, Average happiness (AH) is an appropriate measure. If the focus is on enduring happiness, it is better to combine average happiness with longevity in an index of Happy Life Years (HLY). If the aim is to reduce disparity among citizens a relevant indicator is the Inequality of Happiness (IH) in the nations as measured with the standard deviation. Average and dispersion can also be combined in an index of Inequality-Adjusted Happiness (IAH). Comparison across nations shows sizable differences on all these measures of gross national happiness and these differences correspond with societal characteristics that can be influenced by policy makers, such as freedom and justice. Comparison over time shows major improvement during the last decade. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14885/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z What is the final goal of public policy? Jeremy Bentham (1789) would say: greater happiness for a greater number. He thought of happiness as subjective enjoyment of life; in his words as “the sum of pleasures and pains”. In his time the Happiness of the great number could not be measured and it was therefore difficult to asses how happiness can be furthered and whether attempts to do so were successful or not. Hence happiness remained a subject of philosophical speculation. Today we can do better. Social scientists have found that happiness can be measured using questions about life-satisfaction and have applied such questions in large scale surveys of the general population. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14886/ 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z One of the reasons for promoting sustainable consumption is that it may give rise to greater happiness for a greater number, at least in the long run. In this paper I explore the strength of that moral account. I take stock of the assumed effects of sustainable consumption on happiness and then review the empirical evidence for such effects on the present generation. I make also educated guesses about the consequences for the happiness of generations to come. The evidence suggests that a shift to sustainable consumption involve a minor reduction in happiness, at least temporarily, but that we can live quite happily with less luxury. Sustainable consumption by the present generation will only add to the happiness of future generations if it prevents major ecological disasters or if exhaustion of resources will reduce future generations to poverty. Moral justification of sustainable consumption can better appeal to the inherent value of the things it aims to sustain than to human happiness. Veenhoven, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16123/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Research on transnationalism is predominantly focused on well-established labor and family migrant communities. The question whether the transnationalism of these types of migrants differs significantly from those of asylum migrants has not received an unequivocal answer. We have studied the importance of the flight motive for the transnationalism of Burundian asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Transnational contacts and identification are not self-evident for the 18 Burundians questioned in our case study; they do not develop automatically with and via countrymen; and they take on a different form in the destination countries of the Netherlands and Belgium. These findings are inextricably connected to the ethnic and political conflicts that have induced respondents’ flight from Burundi. Hence, our study not only demonstrates that migration motives do indeed play an important role in relation to transnationalism, but also that the study of asylum migrants is an essential complement to the prevailing research on transnationalism of settled labor and family migrant communities. Mascini, P. Fermin, A.M.E. Snick, H. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16157/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z De hedendaagse cultuur, zo kunnen wij vaststellen, heeft veel van zijn vroegere metafysische fundamenten verloren. De opkomst van een postmoderne cultuur vanaf de jaren zestig bevestigt, meer dan al het andere, de juistheid van Webers analyse van de onttovering van de wereld als een geleidelijke erosie van ooit nog stevig metafysisch verankerde betekenissen. Velen hebben vandaag de dag niet langer het gevoel dat zij nog in ‘natuurlijke’ of ‘solide gefundeerde’ sociale werelden leven, maar veeleer in hardnekkig voortwoekerende simulaties die de ‘echte’ en ‘authentieke’ werkelijkheid aan het zicht onttrekken (Baudrillard, 1993[1976]): een wereld waarin ‘diepte’ heeft plaatsgemaakt voor ‘oppervlakte’ (Jameson, 1991), waarin het gezag van de wetenschap om de waarheid te verkondigen verregaand is aangetast (Bauman, 1987; Rorty, 1979), en waarin de christelijke kerken veel van hun vroegere geloofwaardigheid zijn verloren (Brown, 2001; Houtman en Mascini, 2002; Norris en Inglehart, 2004). In deze verregaand onttoverde wereld is het verlangen naar ‘echtheid’ en ‘authenticiteit’ van de weeromstuit navenant toegenomen. Hierdoor is de menselijke binnenwereld van persoonlijke ervaringen, emoties en intuïties steeds belangrijker geworden en zijn ‘zichzelf zijn’ en ‘afstand nemen van formele rollen’ steeds meer maatgevende sociale normen geworden. Tegenwoordig worden ‘authentieke’ mensen als ‘leuke’, ‘interessante’ of ‘inspirerende’ mensen beschouwd, terwijl omgekeerd ‘bureaucratische papierschuivers’ en ‘vergadertijgers’, net als machtigen die met graagte hun macht etaleren en zich verheven voelen boven gewone stervelingen, in het gunstigste geval ‘saai’, ‘slaapverwekkend’ of ‘stomvervelend’ worden gevonden en in het ongunstigste geval gewoon als ‘slechte mensen’ worden beschouwd. Juist omdat trouw zijn aan zichzelf en voorzichtig omgaan met de emoties van anderen dwingende sociale normen zijn geworden, die velen met graagte aan anderen opleggen, kan op grond van de verregaande emotionalisering van de samenleving niet worden besloten dat de sociale controle inmiddels wel zo’n beetje is verdwenen (Furedi, 2003). De hedendaagse fascinatie met het persoonlijke gevoels- en ervaringsleven blijft dan ook niet beperkt tot het privé-domein en de intieme omgang met vrienden en geliefden. Ook het publieke domein, van religie tot gezondheidszorg en van politiek tot economie, is door de opkomst van de emotiecultuur diepgaand veranderd. Therapeuten, psychiaters en personal coaches verdienen dik belegde boterhammen in de welzijnsindustrie (Furedi, 2003); van managers en politici wordt, meer dan al het andere, verwacht dat zij werknemers en kiezers een goed gevoel kunnen bezorgen en hen weten te inspireren, enthousiasmeren en motiveren (Houtman, 2008; Van Zoonen, 2005); en waar bedrijven hun geld ooit verdienden met handel in goederen en diensten, zijn tegenwoordig vooral de met deze laatste verbonden dromen en ‘ervaringen’ maatgevend geworden (Pine en Gilmore, 1999). De onttovering van de wereld heeft een postmoderne ‘ervarings-’ of ‘emotiecultuur’ in het leven geroepen. Houtman, D. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16747/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z In this paper we focus on the implementation and management of work-life policies in the workplace and the key role of managers in this context. We review the existing literature, enabling us to set a research agenda focused on explaining managerial attitudes and behaviour toward work-life policies in different organisational and national contexts. The evidence found in several studies suggests that managers often receive mixed messages about the implementation of work/life policies because these policies are not embedded in the workplace; managers are often unaware of such policies and lack training in them, leading to inconsistency in implementation and short-term thinking rather than a long-term perspective that cherishes human capital. Our review points to the need for more research allowing a full understanding of managerial attitudes and behaviour in different organisational and national contexts. Although a few interesting studies do exist, research in the field is still in its infancy. More research is needed, in particular systematic studies with well-developed theoretical frameworks. Keywords Line managers, work-life policies, allowance decisions, European workplace Dulk, L. den Peper, A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12179/ 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z First we investigate how the political culture in western countries has changed over time. Three theoretical views are put to the test using data on party-manifestos. The first predicts that only new-leftist issues will increase in salience. The second predicts that both new-leftist and new-rightist issues will emerge at the same time. The third, which is empirically corroborated, predicts that first new-leftist issues will emerge followed by the rise in newrightist issues. Second, we investigate how the emergence of these new issues has affected the traditional class-party alignments. Using the International Mobility and Stratification File we show that the middle class increasingly votes left wing as new-leftist issues become more important and that the working class increasingly votes right wing as new-rightist issues become more important. What’s more, the middle class appears to alienate from the traditional party of their class as new-rightist issues rise in salience. Achterberg, P.H.J. Waal, J. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12180/ 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source (Nieuwbeerta & Ganzeboom 1996), this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences, rather than a decline of class voting proves responsible for the decline of the traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less, but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead – it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline of class voting, due to the widespread application of the Alford index. Achterberg, P.H.J. Houtman, D. Waal, J. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12181/ 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z Waal, J. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12182/ 2008-04-17T00:00:00Z Drawing upon problems of interpretation in political sociological research, this article questions the common practice of lumping together moral traditionalism and authoritarianism. First, it is demonstrated that of the two only moral traditionalism relates to religious orthodoxy. Second, the well-established strong correlation between both value orientations proves to be caused, in the case at hand solely by the circumstance that nontraditionalism and nonauthoritarianism go hand in hand; moral traditionalism and authoritarianism are almost unrelated. Third, moral traditionalists are shown to vote for Christian right-wing parties, whereas authoritarianism more commonly leads to a vote for a secular right-wing party. Fourth, whereas moral traditionalism proves decisive for the voting behavior of Christians, it is authoritarianism that underlies the non-Christian vote. These findings from The Netherlands (consistent with theories on cultural modernization) lead to the conclusion that attention should be paid to the distinction between these orientations because this aids the interpretation of research fi ndings, and because authoritarianism will probably gain a more central role in politics at the cost of moral traditionalism. Koster, W. de Waal, J. van der