Welfare states contribute to people's well-being in many different ways. Bringing all these contributions under a common metric is tricky. Here we propose doing so through the notion of temporal autonomy: the freedom to spend one's time as one pleases, outside the necessities of everyday life. Using surveys from five countries (the United States, Australia, Germany, France, and Sweden) that represent the principal types of welfare and gender regimes, we propose ways of operationalizing the time that is strictly necessary for people to spend in paid labor, unpaid household labor, and personal care. The time people have at their disposal after taking into account what is strictly necessary in these three arenas - which we call discretionary time - represents people's temporal autonomy. We measure the impact on this of government taxes, transfers, and childcare subsidies in these five countries. In so doing, we calibrate the contributions of the different welfare and gender regimes that exist in these countries, in ways that correspond to the lived reality of people's daily lives.
Comparisons of means or associations between theoretical constructs of interest in cross-national comparative research assume measurement invariance, that is, that the same constructs are measured in the same way across the various nations under study. While it is intuitive, this assumption needs to be statistically tested. An increasing number of sociological and social psychological studies have been published in the last decade in which the cross-national comparability of various scales such as human values, national identity, attitudes toward democracy, or religiosity, to name but afew, were tested. Many of these studies did not manage to fully achieve measurement invariance. In this study we review, in anontechnical manner, the methodological literature on measurement invariance testing. We explain what it is, how to test for it, and what to do when measurement invariance across countries is not given in the data. Several approaches have been recently proposed in the literature on how to deal with measurement noninvariance. We illustrate one of these approaches with alarge dataset of seven rounds from the European Social Survey (2002-2015) by estimating the most trustworthy means of human values, even when strict measurement invariance is not given in the data. We conclude with asummary and some critical remarks. ZusammenfassungVergleiche von Mittelwerten und von Beziehungen zwischen theoretischen Konstrukten, die im Rahmen international vergleichender Forschung untersucht werden, gehen davon aus, dass diese Konstrukte messinvariant sind, d.h., dass sie in den verschiedenen Landern identisch gemessen werden. Obwohl diese Annahme plausibel sein kann, muss sie jedoch statistisch getestet werden. Im letzten Jahrzehnt wurde eine zunehmende Zahl von soziologischen, politikwissenschaftlichen und sozialpsychologischen Studien veroffentlicht, in denen die internationale Vergleichbarkeit von verschiedenen Skalen zur Messung von z.B. menschlichen Werten, nationaler Identitat, Einstellungen zu Demokratie oder Religiositat uberpruft wurde. In vielen dieser Studien konnte Messinvarianz nicht vollig nachgewiesen werden. Die folgende Studie bietet in einer nicht technischen Art und Weise einen uberblick uber die methodologische Literatur zur Messinvarianz. Es wird erklart, was Messinvarianz ist, wie man sie uberpruft und was man tun kann, wenn sie in den Daten nicht gegeben ist. In der Literatur wurden in der letzten Zeit verschiedene Ansatze vorgeschlagen, wie man fehlende Messinvarianz behandeln kann. Die Autoren illustrieren eine dieser Herangehensweisen (Alignment) mit einem gro ss en Datensatz, der 7Befragungsrunden des European Social Survey (2002-2015) beinhaltet, und schatzen den vertrauenswurdigsten Durchschnitt menschlicher Werte, auch wenn strikte Messinvarianz in den Daten nicht vorhanden ist. Abschlie ss end folgen eine Zusammenfassung und einige kritische Anmerkungen.
Focuses on measurement and definitional consistency. Also assesses major published sources of cross-national data on the size distribution of income; and offers suggestions for minimizing the negative consequences of measurement problems.
This study explores the variations in the relationship between women's employment and educational attainment, as well as in women's employment status itself, in 12 industrial societies, referring to welfare regime typology. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)2012 survey on 'Family and Changing Gender Roles IV' is used for cross-national analysis. The results suggest that women's employment rate can be explained by the type ofwelfare regime to a certain extent. However, once we break down the employment rate into full-time and part-time components, a great varlatlon emerges within welfare regime. With regard to the relationship between women's educational attainment and employment, welfare regime only partly explains the variation among the 12 countries. Furthermore the lselationship between womens full-time and part-time employment and their educational attainment varies within each type of welfare regime.
Discusses major theoretical and practical problems that can arise in measuring and comparing patterns of income distribution across nations, and assesses major published sources of cross-national data on the size distribution of income in light of these problems. Suggests ways of minimizing the negative consequences of measurement problems. (Abstract amended)
In recent years a large number of cross-national studies have examined the causes and consequences of income inequality within nations. Unfortunately, few of these studies have attended very carefully to problems of measurement and definitional consistency that can seriously undermine the comparative use of currently available data on income shares. This article offers a discussion of the major theoretical and practical problems that can arise in measuring and comparing patterns of income distribution across nations, focusing on the completeness of income coverage, the unit of analysis, the time period over which income is measured, the scope of population coverage, the underreporting of income, and the effect of public sector fiscal policies. It then assesses major published sources of cross-national data on the size distribution of income in light of these problems. Finally, the article offers several suggestions for minimizing the negative consequences of measurement problems that remain in even the best available data on income shares.
This article reviews cross-national research on multicultural policies in relation to immigrants in the main European and Anglo-Saxon immigrant-receiving countries. It compares the policies themselves and reviews studies that evaluate their outcomes. The size of immigrant populations as well as their composition in terms of countries of origin, religion, and human capital are key to understanding why multiculturalism has fallen further from grace in Europe than in the classical immigrant-receiving countries of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, religious rights are identified as the main source of controversy regarding multicultural rights; that Muslims make up a larger proportion of immigrants to Europe explains in part the more critical evaluation that multicultural policies receive there. The reviewed studies reveal a mixed picture regarding outcomes of multicultural policies, with little effect on socioeconomic integration, some positive effects on political integration, and negative impacts on sociocultural integration.
Comparative research on poverty, income inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg Income Study. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have been based on a single year. In this paper, we have analysed cross-national patterns of poverty and income inequality with special emphasis on their stability. We examine trends in poverty and income inequality between 1980 and 1995 in nine countries representing three different ideal types of social policy.The differences in poverty among the countries studied correspond with the respective models of social policy more clearly in the mid-1990s than they did 15 years earlier. Generally speaking, the poverty rate is slightly under 5 per cent in the Nordic countries, around 7.5 per cent in Central Europe, 10 per cent in Canada, 12.5 per cent in the UK, and as high as 17.5 per cent in the USA.In all countries included in the analysis, the primary distribution – based on market income – has become less equal than before. In each country, the proportion of the population able to achieve subsistence from the market alone has decreased continuously. This trend is more significant than the change in actual poverty, which means that the absolute poverty-alleviating impact of income redistribution systems became stronger in these countries during the period 1980–1995.The analysis of income inequality produced a similar picture. In comparison to poverty, however, the change is rather less extensive. The Nordic countries, in particular, have been able to respond to the rise in market income differences so that the income inequality for disposable incomes has hardly increased at all. Canada shows a parallel trend. The USA and, in particular, the UK reflect a movement in the opposite direction.Trends in poverty in various population groups are analysed. By 1995 poverty had turned into a risk for young adults in all the countries studied. The poverty rate increased for the 18–30 age-group in all countries, while an opposite trend was observed among the elderly, in particular those aged over 65. The poverty rate among the elderly is now below the average population rate in all the countries studied.
Comparative research of poverty, income inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg Income Study project. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have been based on a single year. For this paper we analyzed cross-national patterns of poverty and income inequality with a special emphasis on their stability. We studied trends of poverty and income inequality between 1980 and 1995 in nine countries representing three different ideal types of social policy. The differences in poverty across the countries studied corresponded with the respective models of social policy more clearly in the mid-1990s than they did 15 years earlier. Generally speaking, the poverty rate is slightly under 5% in the Nordic countries, around 7.5% in Central Europe, 10% in Canada, 12.5% in the UK, and as high as 17.5% in the USA. All the countries included in the analysis share the trend that the primary distribution - based on the market income - has become less equal than before. In each country, the proportion of population being able to gain subsistence from the market alone has decreased continuously. This trend is significantly more remarkable than the change in actual poverty, which means that the absolute poverty alleviating impact of the income redistribution systems became stronger in these countries during the period 1980-1995. The analysis of income inequality produced a basically similar picture of the differences across the countries and the models of social policy as the analysis of poverty did. In comparison to poverty, however, the change is generally speaking less extensive. The Nordic countries, in particular, have been capable of responding to the rise of the market income differences so that the income inequality for disposable incomes has practically not increased at all. Canada shows a parallel trend. The USA and, in particular, the UK represent the opposite development. We also analyzed trends of poverty in various population groups. It was found that by 1995 poverty had turned into a risk of young adults in all the countries studied. The poverty rate increased for the age group 18-30 years in all countries, while an opposite trend was observed among the elderly, in particular those aged over 65. Poverty rate among the elderly is nowadays below the average population-level rate in all the countries studied.
