The Missing Link: Deficits of Country-Level Studies. A Review of 22 Articles Explaining Life Satisfaction

Nonnenmacher, Alexandra; Friedrichs, Jürgen

doi:10.1007/s11205-011-9981-8

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…In this study, we argue that these hypotheses have systematically glossed over the role of non-kin ties as a source of support and its link with cultural context. Moreover, unlike prior comparative work which has often treated cultural context as a black box (Nonnenmacher and Friedrichs 2013), we plea for a careful conceptualisation of culture, highlighting the importance of differentiating between familialistic norms and individualistic values. To conduct this research, we distinguish between three key sources of support -kin, non-kin and professionals -and focus on two types of support, namely advice and help when looking for a job.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Non-kin ties as a source of support in Europe: understanding the role of cultural context

2017

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The 'crowding-out' and the 'decline of the family' hypotheses are the fundamental theoretical notions underlying the literature on cross-country differences in informal support. In this study, we expand upon these notions to develop and test the premise that cultural context shapes European's views about an often overlooked source of support: non-kin. We carefully conceptualise cultural context as individualistic values and familialistic norms. Employing multilevel multinomial models and European Quality of Life Survey data from 27 countries, we confirm the importance of decomposing the broader notion of culture by demonstrating that contexts with both less pronounced individualistic values and less pronounced familialistic norms are conducive to non-kin rather than kin or professional help. Moreover, unlike prior work, which suggested the existence of a north/west-south/east divide in support patterns, our findings show nuanced cross-national differences in the importance of non-kin ties as a source of advice and help when looking for a job. We find some of the highest levels of non-kin reliance in countries in southern and eastern Europe, and in northern and western Europe more generally. We conclude by proposing ways in which future research can advance our understanding of the role of context in shaping support patterns.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Non-kin ties as a source of support in Europe: understanding the role of cultural context

2017

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“…We conducted analyses at both the country and regional levels to test various social capital mechanisms that are more applicable country or regionwide. As Nonnenmacher and Friedrichs () emphasized in their meta‐analysis, including only the country level may yield an incomplete analysis because in “many cases not the entire country will be perceptible or relevant for the individual” (p. 1224). They suggested that researchers should include a meso level in analyses whenever data allow because the regional level may mediate the effect of the country level, or, as in the case of the present study, it may reveal alternate processes than those at the country level.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within European countries, regions can vary dramatically, with norms, cultural traditions, social support, economic stability, and even language differing from one province or region to the next. Although recent research supports the need for considering the meso level in multilevel analyses (Nonnenmacher & Friedrichs, ), no study has yet combined the national and regional levels, and earlier studies have therefore not been able to determine the extent to which the theorized mechanisms do in fact drive the observed effects of marital status composition.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Multilevel analysis is useful when studying the effect of contextual factors on individuals because it takes into account the clustering of individuals in regions and countries and thereby prevents the overestimation of effects at these contextual levels. Previous cross‐national analyses at the individual level only were limited by not being able to adjust for variance within as well as between countries (Huijts & Kraaykamp, ; Kalmijn, ) and were not able to test hypotheses explaining differences between countries (Nonnenmacher & Friedrichs, ). Finally, in contrast to most studies on contextual differences in the relationship between widowhood and health, we focused on subjective rather than objective well‐being.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Widowhood and Well‐being in Europe: The Role of National and Regional Context

Ory

Huijts

2015

J of Marriage and Family

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Researchers have documented that widows have lower levels of subjective well‐being than married individuals, but we still know little about how the regional and national contexts affect the impact of widowhood on well‐being. Building on social capital theory and using data from 5 rounds of the European Social Survey (N= 119,292 people, 206 regions, 23 countries), the authors tested how marital status composition at the national and regional levels affects the well‐being of widows. Widows fare worse in countries with high proportions of married people and in regions and countries with high proportions of widowed persons. The proportion of married individuals at the regional level does not affect their well‐being. These results are in line with the greedy marriage hypothesis, but varying effects at regional and national levels suggest that the standard explanation for this phenomenon, lack of individual social support, is not valid. This study demonstrates the importance of multiple contextual embeddedness.

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“…In social science survey research, analyzing the context of social behavior is heavily supported by using areal information about respondents' 2 neighborhoods, especially on a small scale (Nonnenmacher and Friedrichs 2011;Sluiter, Tolsma, and Scheepers 2015). By using small-scale georeferenced survey data, researchers can answer questions about individual social behavior or attitudes (Förster 2018;Termorshuizen, Braam, and van Ameijden 2015) while also taking into account the geospatial patterns of social processes (Klinger, Müller, and Schaeffer 2017;Legewie and Schaeffer 2016;Tolsma and van der Meer 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Documenting Georeferenced Social Science Survey Data: Limits of Metadata Standards and Possible Solutions

Jünger

Borschewski

Zenk-Möltgen

2019

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries

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In this article, we present documentation of the georeferenced social science survey data that are spatially linked to geospatial data attributes. We introduce the challenges of documentation, as different metadata standards are used for both data sources: social science survey data and geospatial data. In particular, we analyze the extent to which the social sciences metadata standard DDI Lifecycle is capable of incorporating the geosciences metadata standard ISO 19115. We find that the most challenging attributes to describe are those concerning the geographic structure of the geospatial data, especially if they stem from different sources. To navigate these issues, we developed and evaluated four workaround approaches which we demonstrate in a case study on the georeferenced German General Social Survey. Because not all of the approaches apply equally to every research project and institution, we provide a scheme to assist in making informed and weighted decisions.

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The Missing Link: Deficits of Country-Level Studies. A Review of 22 Articles Explaining Life Satisfaction

Cited by 9 publications

References 56 publications

Non-kin ties as a source of support in Europe: understanding the role of cultural context

Non-kin ties as a source of support in Europe: understanding the role of cultural context

Widowhood and Well‐being in Europe: The Role of National and Regional Context

Documenting Georeferenced Social Science Survey Data: Limits of Metadata Standards and Possible Solutions

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