Does Variation in the Extent of Generalized Trust, Individual Education and Extensiveness of Social Security Policies Matter for Maximization of Subjective Well-Being?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 371
Author(s):  
Rania Fuadovna Valeeva
2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-582
Author(s):  
Nina Pavlović ◽  
Jasmina Petrović

The context of a pandemic caused by an infectious agent and the resulting health risk to a large number of people is a new type of risk contemporary humans are not quite familiar with. In addition to forcing citizens to rely on the effects of controlled medical and epidemiological measures, this kind of situation steers citizens towards cooperation and solidarity as well as towards personal capabilities of functioning during a crisis and it requires a certain degree of trust, not only in the institutions but also in other persons. The aim of this paper is to learn to what degree Serbian citizens trust others during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this level of generalized trust differs among different sociodemographic groups, or more precisely, which groups were affected the most by the absence of generalized trust. The paper also analyzes a set of variables which are either a part of the concept of subjective well-being (feeling of happiness and life satisfaction) or are closely connected to it (the feeling of control over life, subjective health assessment, and assessments of solidarity and honesty of others). The analyzed data were obtained from a sample of 602 adult Serbian citizens who participated in an online survey in May 2020 by completing a questionnaire they received via e-mail and social networks from multiple access points. These data are compared to the newest available data on the given indicators in Serbia before the pandemic, collected within the European Values Study (EVS) in 2017 and the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2018. The results indicate a significant decrease in happiness and continuously low levels of the feeling of control over life and life satisfaction, but also an increase in the assessed honesty and solidarity of others. These findings are in accordance with the results of the previous studies, which revealed different dominant aspects in the analyzed concepts, leading to their different flexibility and (non)resilience to the changes in society.


Author(s):  
Danying Li ◽  
Miguel R. Ramos ◽  
Matthew R. Bennett ◽  
Douglas S. Massey ◽  
Miles Hewstone

Immigration is increasing around the world. Academic work suggests that increasing immigration reduces social cohesion and subjective well-being, but these studies mainly focused on white majority populations. Using the 2002 to 2014 European Social Survey, we analyze data from 5,149 ethnic minority respondents living in twenty-four European countries. We examine the association between immigration and respondents’ well-being, mediated by two critical cognitive mechanisms: perceived discrimination and generalized trust. We find that in the short term, immigration is associated with greater perceived discrimination, which in turn is associated with lower trust and well-being. Over the longer term, though, immigration is associated with lower perceived discrimination from ethnic minorities, yielding greater generalized trust and perceived well-being.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0193841X2092723
Author(s):  
Marco Caliendo ◽  
Stefan Tübbicke

Background: The literature on start-up subsidies (SUS) for the unemployed finds positive effects on objective outcome measures such as employment or income. However, little is known about effects on subjective well-being of participants. Knowledge about this is especially important because subsidizing the transition into self-employment may have unintended adverse effects on participants’ well-being due to its risky nature and lower social security protection, especially in the long run. Objective: We study the long-term effects of SUS on subjective outcome indicators of well-being, as measured by the participants’ satisfaction in different domains. This extends previous analyses of the current German SUS program (“Gründungszuschuss”) that focused on objective outcomes—such as employment and income—and allows us to make a more complete judgment about the overall effects of SUS at the individual level. Research design: Having access to linked administrative-survey data providing us with rich information on pretreatment characteristics, we base our analysis on the conditional independence assumption and use propensity score matching to estimate causal effects within the potential outcomes framework. We perform several sensitivity analyses to inspect the robustness of our findings. Results: We find long-term positive effects on job satisfaction but negative effects on individuals’ satisfaction with their social security situation. Supplementary findings suggest that the negative effect on satisfaction with social security may be driven by negative effects on unemployment and retirement insurance coverage. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals substantial variation in effects across gender, age groups, and skill levels. Estimates are highly robust.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Zhu Qian

This paper assesses displaced villagers’ life satisfaction in government-designated resettlement communities after land expropriation. From the theoretical perspective of subjective well-being, the study explores the relationship between the overall life satisfaction of displaced villagers and their subjective satisfaction with three dimensions in their post-resettlement life – 1) material living conditions, 2) social security and employment support, and 3) attitudinal perceptions, social relations and participation. A pilot survey was conducted in two resettlement communities in suburban Nanjing. The study shows that while compensation and resettlement policy reforms have improved resettled villagers’ material living conditions; they still struggle with urban life transformation and adaptation from the social and attitudinal perspectives. An integrated resettlement approach is proposed to facilitate better accessibility to social security programs and non-agricultural employment opportunities, and to address issues in identity adaptation, lifestyle transformation, and social activity participation.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. e035993
Author(s):  
Julija Simpson ◽  
Heather Brown ◽  
Zoe Bell ◽  
Viviana Albani ◽  
Clare Bambra

IntroductionPoor mental health is one of the greatest causes of disability in the world. Evidence increasingly shows that population mental health may be influenced by national social security policies. This systematic review aims to establish the relationship between social security and mental health in order to help inform recommendations for policy-makers, practitioners and future research.Methods and analysisA systematic review of quantitative observational studies investigating mental health outcomes related to changes in social security policies will be conducted. Six major databases, including Medline, PsychInfo, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Applied Social Sciences Index Abstracts and Scopus, as well as Research Papers in Economics will be searched from January 1979 to April 2020. The electronic database searches will be supplemented by reference and citation searches as well as hand-searching of key journals. The outcomes of interest are objective or subjective mental health outcomes, including stress, anxiety, depression, self-reported mental health scores, subjective well-being and suicide. Study selection will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, and the quality of the studies will be assessed by the validity assessment framework designed for appraising econometric studies. A narrative synthesis will be conducted for all included studies. If data permit, study findings will be synthesised by conducting a meta-analysis.Ethics and disseminationAs it will be a systematic review, without primary data collection, there will be no requirement for ethical approval. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and in various media, for example, conferences or symposia.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42019154733.


GeroPsych ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Oberhauser ◽  
Andreas B. Neubauer ◽  
Eva-Marie Kessler

Abstract. Conflict avoidance increases across the adult lifespan. This cross-sectional study looks at conflict avoidance as part of a mechanism to regulate belongingness needs ( Sheldon, 2011 ). We assumed that older adults perceive more threats to their belongingness when they contemplate their future, and that they preventively react with avoidance coping. We set up a model predicting conflict avoidance that included perceptions of future nonbelonging, termed anticipated loneliness, and other predictors including sociodemographics, indicators of subjective well-being and perceived social support (N = 331, aged 40–87). Anticipated loneliness predicted conflict avoidance above all other predictors and partially mediated the age-association of conflict avoidance. Results suggest that belongingness regulation accounts may deepen our understanding of conflict avoidance in the second half of life.


GeroPsych ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Kaliterna Lipovčan ◽  
Tihana Brkljačić ◽  
Zvjezdana Prizmić Larsen ◽  
Andreja Brajša-Žganec ◽  
Renata Franc

Abstract. Research shows that engagement in leisure activities promotes well-being among older adults. The objective of the current study was to examine the relationship between subjective well-being (flourishing) and leisure activities (total number of different activities in the previous year) in a sample of older adults in Croatia, thereby considering the variables of sex, marital status, financial status, and self-perceived health. The differences in the examined variables between the groups of older adults who reported to be engaged in new activities with those who did not were also examined. The sample of N = 169 older adults aged 60 years and above was drawn from a convenience sample of adult internet users in Croatia. Participants reported their self-perceived health and the number of leisure activities they engaged in over the previous year as well as completing the Flourishing Scale. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that older adults who were engaged in more various leisure activities, who perceived better financial status, and who were married reported higher levels of flourishing. A comparison of the two groups of older adults with and without engagement in leisure activities showed that those engaged in at least one leisure activity were more likely to be women, reported higher levels of flourishing, and perceived their own financial status as better. This study indicated that engaging in leisure activities in later life might provide beneficial effects for the well-being of older adults.


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