{"title":"Intergenerational effects of parental unemployment on infant health: evidence from Swedish register data","authors":"Björn Högberg, A. Baranowska-Rataj, Jonas Voßemer","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Parental unemployment can have detrimental effects on life chances of the children, and thereby reinforce inequalities across generations. Despite a substantial literature documenting that the health of infants at birth can have large and long-lasting consequences, research on intergenerational unemployment effects on infant health is scant. This study fills the gap using high-quality register data from Sweden, including 1.5 million siblings born between 1996 and 2017. To account for selection into unemployment, we employ sibling comparison designs that exploit variation in siblings’ exposure to parental unemployment, thereby accounting for stable but unmeasured confounding at the level of families. We find small and not consistently significant effects of maternal unemployment, and no effects of paternal unemployment. Our results also suggest that pre-existing social disadvantages—low education, migration background, and dual parental unemployment—are not associated with more adverse intergenerational unemployment effects. The discussion of our findings situates these results in the context of a relatively generous and egalitarian welfare state.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41391428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Control variable selection in applied quantitative sociology: a critical review","authors":"Ulrich Kohler, Fabian Class, Tim Sawert","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac078","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A review of all research papers published in the European Sociological Review in 2016 and 2017 (N = 118) shows that only a minority of papers clearly define the parameter of interest and provide sufficient reasoning for the selected control variables of the statistical analysis. Thus, the vast majority of papers does not reach minimal standards for the selection of control variables. Consequently, a majority of papers interpret biased coefficients, or statistics without proper sociological meaning. We postulate that authors and reviewers should be more careful about control variable selection. We propose graphical causal models in the form of directed acyclic graphs as an example for a parsimonious and powerful means to that end.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134977165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Signals, educational decision-making, and inequality: a comment on the formal model by Holm, Hjorth-Trolle, and Jæger","authors":"G. Yastrebov","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac041","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this comment, I explore the assumptions and the implications of the formal (mathematical) model proposed by Holm, Hjorth-Trolle, and Jæger (HHJ) in their article in European Sociological Review, 35(4) (2019). The model links educational decision-making to social background inequality and academic ability and is said to conform to the key propositions of the Relative-Risk-Aversion theory and the Compensatory-Advantage-Model. Its most original component is that it allows for the error in estimating one’s ability, which, once known, impacts on the decision to (dis)continue education. The error is said to have a differential impact on students of different social backgrounds, whereby social inequality in educational decisions is effectively maintained. The model also deserves attention and praise as one of the few attempts in our field to reason formally and provide a mathematical formulation of theoretical arguments. However, I scrutinize the model and show that (i) some of its assumptions may not be defensible; that (ii) the most interesting and original hypothesis proposed by HHJ does not follow from the model; and that (iii) the empirical implications of the model are wrongly interpreted in terms of probability differences. I then show which particular assumption is required for HHJ’s most original hypothesis to hold. The assumption is non-intuitive, and I conclude that the hypothesis, as formulated by HHJ, does not have a sound theoretical basis.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47988736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vocational education, tertiary education, and skill use across career stages","authors":"W. Schulz, Heike Solga, Reinhard Pollak","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac074","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Vocational education enhances smooth transitions into the labour market. However, this initial advantage might vanish over the career and eventually turn into a disadvantage because the skills of vocationally trained workers become outdated faster. So far, research has examined this potential vocational trade-off by assessing labour market outcomes such as employment and income. This study uses a different approach, it directly examines how different types of skills used at work change over the career of vocationally trained workers compared to tertiary-educated workers, and how career events shape skill-use changes. With data from the German National Education Study (NEPS), we examine five skills use dimensions based on job-tasks measures: analytical, creative, managerial, interactive, and manual skills. We find that skill-use differentials between vocational and tertiary-educated workers are only small to modest. The clearest differences relate to analytical and manual skills. Looking across career stages, the observed skill-use differentials remain rather stable across career stages—thus, the vocational skill trade-off thesis is only partially supported. Occupational mobility and unemployment contribute to observable changes, whereas job-related further training does not. Our results challenge skill-based explanations of a vocational trade-off.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48726725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How do my earnings compare? Pay referents and just earnings","authors":"P. Eisnecker, J. Adriaans","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Comparisons are crucial in shaping evaluations of one’s own position. Following this notion, we investigated the role of historical, financial, partner, occupational, and regional pay referents in predicting the just gross hourly earnings in a representative sample of German workers. Looking at this broad range of pay referents, we find that higher reference earnings were generally associated with higher just earnings. In particular, controlling for actual gross hourly earnings, higher occupational, regional, and partners’ hourly earnings were associated with higher just gross hourly earnings. One’s own pay history, in form of average hourly earnings over the past 10 years, did not shape just earnings. Financial needs on the household level, however, mapped on to higher just earnings and this association was particularly pronounced among men. Overall, occupational and financial referents showed the strongest association with just earnings followed by partner earnings. These findings underscore that, while referents closely related to one’s job (e.g., occupational referents) are important, referents that extend beyond the sphere of work (e.g., regional, financial, and partner referents) are also relevant in shaping ideas of the just reward.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47870315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners","authors":"Marc Keuschnigg, Arnout van de Rijt, Thijs Bol","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac076","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Are the best-paying jobs with the highest prestige done by individuals of great intelligence? Past studies find job success to increase with cognitive ability, but do not examine how, conversely, ability varies with job success. Stratification theories suggest that social background and cumulative advantage dominate cognitive ability as determinants of high occupational success. This leads us to hypothesize that among the relatively successful, average ability is concave in income and prestige. We draw on Swedish register data containing measures of cognitive ability and labour-market success for 59,000 men who took a compulsory military conscription test. Strikingly, we find that the relationship between ability and wage is strong overall, yet above €60,000 per year ability plateaus at a modest level of +1 standard deviation. The top 1 per cent even score slightly worse on cognitive ability than those in the income strata right below them. We observe a similar but less pronounced plateauing of ability at high occupational prestige.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135693704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Detraditionalization, mental illness reports, and mental health professional care use in Europe","authors":"I. Pop, Femke Roosma, P. Achterberg","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac077","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this study, we address the question of whether individuals that live in more detraditionalized countries have higher levels of mental illness and mental health professional care use. We argue that it is meaningful to consider the different facets of detraditionalization, that is the level of secularization, the ethos of personal autonomy, and self-realization, the erosion of traditional gender roles when understanding patterns of mental illness reports and mental health professional care use. We use data collected in 2010 in 25 European countries by Eurobarometer and find that, generally speaking, people living in more detraditionalized countries are more inclined to use mental health professional care, and that they, on average, report less mental illness than people in less detraditionalized countries. Furthermore, not all forms of adversity result in higher levels of mental health professional care use in the more detraditionalized countries. This is the case only for those experiencing financial strain while for those experiencing unemployment or divorce this was not the case. Furthermore, in more detraditionalized countries, the experience of divorce was related to fewer mental illness reports, a result that could be linked to processes such as the erosion of the traditional institution of marriage and the normalization of divorce in these societies.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45031376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ready or not, here I come: the significance of information about educational success for educational decisions","authors":"Kira Solveig Larsen","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac075","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study analyses the effect of the Educational Readiness Assessment (ERA)—a scheme that categorizes students in Denmark as either ‘ready’ or ‘not ready’ for upper secondary education—on educational decision-making. Because the ERA uses a grade-specific cut-off to determine readiness, it can be used in a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of the ERA on educational decision-making. Inspired by the theory of Relative Risk Aversion (RRA), the study argues that non-service-class students respond to a negative signal by postponing the decision (not) to continue to upper secondary education, while service-class students proceed regardless of receiving a negative signal. Empirical results are mostly consistent with RRA. The policy implications of the results are that students do respond to information regarding the likelihood of educational success, but respond differently depending on their social class position.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136321657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eileen Peters, Lynn Prince Cooke, Silvia Maja Melzer
{"title":"Gendered parenthood gaps in employer-provided training: the role of immediate supervisors","authors":"Eileen Peters, Lynn Prince Cooke, Silvia Maja Melzer","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac067","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Powerful male actors are argued to secure workplace resources for themselves and other in-group members, contributing to workplace inequalities. We contend that, like gender, parenthood similarity in supervisor–supervisee dyads also provokes group processes, and that parenthood is superordinate to childlessness. Critically, we hypothesize how shared supervisor–supervisee parental status at its intersection with gender might intensify or offset (dis)advantage in access to workplace training. Hypotheses are tested with unique linked German employer–employee data and estimating gender-parental training differences using workplace fixed-effects regressions. Results show that while on average women train less than men and parents train more than childless workers, these effects can alter at the intersection with supervisors’ group memberships. Dyad ‘double jeopardy’ is evident in that childless women face the greatest training disadvantages when reporting to childless female supervisors. Yet whether sharing one superordinate status offsets disadvantage of a subordinate group membership occurs only for shared parenthood. Childless men gain no advantage when reporting to a male supervisor, whereas sharing parenthood with immediate supervisors countervails disadvantage of being female for mother supervisees. We conclude that only by considering social relations at the intersection of supervisor–supervisees’ multiple categorical memberships might we better understand the relational processes sustaining or reducing workplace inequalities.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135500272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do women evaluate their lower earnings still to be fair? Findings on the contented female worker paradox examining the role of occupational contexts in 27 European countries","authors":"Ole Brüggemann, Thomas Hinz","doi":"10.1093/esr/jcac073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac073","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is still a puzzling question which gender inequalities in the labour market are perceived as fair and which are not – in the eye of the beholder. This study focuses on gender differences in the perceptions of the fairness of one’s own wage and the role of the occupational context individuals are embedded in. Based on data collected from 27 European countries as part of the 2018 European Social Survey (Round 9), our study contributes to the growing field of wage fairness perceptions by analysing the role of the occupational context (measured as the share of women and the gender pay gap in the respondent’s occupation), and how it moderates gender differences in fairness perceptions. Results indicate that – overall – female workers across Europe perceive their wages more often as unfairly “too low” than their male counterparts within the same country context and occupation, and that this gender gap is more pronounced in occupations with a high proportion of women and higher levels of gender inequality. We interpret these results as an indicator of growing awareness among women regarding the persisting “unfair” gendered wage distributions.","PeriodicalId":48237,"journal":{"name":"European Sociological Review","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135605010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}