Suchergebnisse

Subjective well-being (SWB) is becoming increasingly important as welfare concept in both scientific research and politics, as it comprises additional welfare aspects compared to the GDP per capita. Consequently, it becomes important to explicitly identify its driving forces and clarify still ambivalent findings of the literature. For this purpose, with a multilevel model we investigate the extent to which individual-level and national variables together influence subjective well-being. Moreover, we expect that life satisfaction of people in developing countries is determined differently than life satisfaction of people in industrialized countries. The database used includes both individual and national variables and is split into two subsamples of 40 industrialized countries and 41 developing countries. The results show that the national environment is highly important for a person's SWB. Thus, neglecting this national level would generate biased estimates. Moreover, the split into industrialized and developing countries shows that statistically significant and substantial differences in the effects on life satisfaction exist. Important differences are found for example regarding the income variables. We identify a saturation effect of income on the individual level, whose level is however different depending on the development status of the countries. Moreover, on the aggregated level a significant impact of GDP per capita is found for the developing but not for the industrialized countries. Thus, this study indicates that multilevel modelling approaches are necessary to obtain robust results and that the impact of macroeconomic variables diverges in dependence of the country's development status.

SummaryThe purpose of these analyses is to investigate collective memory, i.e. the shared historical experiences of a community, as driving force for contemporary social capital. Three societal characteristics are considered proxies for collective memory: the current institutional framework as indicator for present common experiences; the cultural attitudes as proxy for long‐term developments; and severe shocks in the history of the regions. The primary aim is thus to understand whether collective memory permits identification of not only the effects of recent (i.e. institutional) or distant (i.e. cultural) on‐going experiences, but also of the impact of such relevant shocks. For this purpose, a comprehensive case study is conducted within a cross‐border research area with special historical development, where it is possible to discriminate between these three indicators of collective memory.The findings suggest a significant impact of collective memory on social capital endowment. Particularly striking shocks are sustained in the collective memory of a community, influencing its behavior even long after the incident occurred. As a consequence, especially the levels of social trust and networking of the affected population are significantly influenced, such that the community develops protective measures in order to secure its norms, values and traditions. As a result, the social capital of a population is heavily influenced by events that occurred outside living memory.