ABSTRACT In this article, we examine reasons for ethnic differences in parental support at the transition to vocational training in Germany and their consequences for the likelihood of finding a training position and the likelihood of premature training termination. We extend previous research by focusing on three different types of parental support: help with writing applications, information about open training positions and efforts towards getting their children a position. Using longitudinal data from Starting Cohort 4 of the German National Educational Panel Study, we show that part of ethnic differences in these types of support can be explained by measures of ethnicity-related background characteristics. Moreover, the relations of receiving country–specific resources to parental support propensities seem to be domain specific. Furthermore, we find that only minority trainees benefit from writing support in terms of finding training and training success. In contrast, if parents made efforts to get their children a position, both minority and majority school leavers are less likely to start training and, in the case of majority trainees, to finish training successfully. These are important findings, as they give new insights into the reasons for ethnic disadvantages in parental support during the transition to vocational training and into the relation of different types of parental support to training search success and premature termination risks.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the interplay between occupational sex composition and gender-specific unemployment patterns from the perspective of demand-side mechanisms, an area where existing research is scant. Experimental evidence suggests that unemployment is often perceived more negatively for men than for women in hiring decisions. However, it is unclear how the disadvantages from unemployment and those associated with applying for gender-atypical jobs combine to (re)produce gender inequality in reemployment chances. Utilizing secondary data from a multicountry vignette experiment, we examined how recruiters across different sex-segregated occupational fields assess male and female job applicants with unemployment experience. We found gender differences in the effect of unemployment, with disadvantages for men increasing with the share of women in an occupation. While the reverse pattern was observed in occupations with lower shares of women, the gender difference in unemployment effects was somewhat larger for men in female-dominated occupations. This was due to occupational variation in unemployment effects for both genders. However, focusing on applicants meeting the minimum skill requirements, only men's unemployment effect varied across occupational fields. Thus occupational sex composition is an important factor in recruiter evaluations of unemployed applicants, intensifying the challenge of reemployment, particularly for men in female-dominated occupations.

ABSTRACT In this article, we ethnographically explore the neoliberal society from two contrasting social and economic perspectives in Sweden: an elite community characterised by well-educated people, full employment and affluence and wealth and a former working-class community with high unemployment rates, poverty and poor education level. Analysing rich and varied field data from 2010 through 2023, the theoretical framework is rooted in Erving Goffman's ideas on self-presentation, providing a lens through which to study the shifts in societal structures and expectations. More specifically, we examine the enactment of the neoliberal society through three interlaced practices: (a) aesthetic self-presentation, (b) behavioural self-presentation, and (c) attitudinal self-presentation. We suggest that the neoliberal society, driven by the ethos of market rationality, contributes to primarily strengthening the ‘employable self’ among residents in the elite community through such expressions as leadership, commitment, energy and activity. In the working-class community, however, we show how an emphasis on modesty, perseverance and loyalty is framed as ‘unemployability’. Despite radically different socio-economic conditions, we suggest how the two communities share significant commonalities in the way individuals’ self-presentations of employability are shaped by the cultural and communal contexts in which they reside.

Abstract The inclusion of students from diverse social origins in classrooms might be a strategy to reduce unequal access to social capital along with social origin. This study investigates the relationship between social heterogeneity in classrooms and inequality in student achievement. Additionally, a social network perspective is taken to investigate help-seeking among peers with a different social origin as a possible underlying mechanism. By analyzing large-scale data with 1,671 9th-grade classrooms and 29,597 students in Germany using multi-level regression models, we find that greater social heterogeneity in classrooms increases students' proportion of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties. Moreover, the alignment between social and ethnic origin (i.e., consolidation) does not moderate the association between social heterogeneity and the proportion of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties. Similarly, the alignment between social origin and sex also has no effect on this association. Furthermore, higher proportions of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties are slightly negatively associated with the achievement gaps between students of the most advantaged and the most disadvantaged social origins. This implies that encouraging cross-social-origin help-seeking can reduce achievement inequality. However, no significant direct association is found between social heterogeneity and achievement inequality. In conclusion, we discuss factors that might hinder social heterogeneity in classrooms from fostering more equal academic outcomes.

Abstract According to market competition theory the reasons for negative attitudes toward immigrants can be found in conditions prevailing on the labor market. In countries with rising unemployment and many immigrants, the latter are considered to be a threat to the economic standard of living of the native population. The contribution of this paper is a macro-level analysis of the conditions in 174 regions nested in European 19 countries that may affect the attitudes towards immigrants. The results indicate that when native unemployment is low the attitudes toward admitting immigrants into the host country are not influenced by immigration, but when native unemployment is rising high immigration flows are perceived as a threat. For attitudes toward immigration, an increase in the share of immigrants has a negative effect on attitudes and this effect is stronger in areas with weaker economies. These results are driven by the set of new immigration countries. For old immigration countries, we find that immigration emerges as the only contextual factor negatively affecting attitudes.

Abstract Having a child with a disability intensifies work-family conflict due to the additional caregiving demands. Prior research suggests that this conflict reinforces more traditional patterns of labour division in families of children with disabilities (FOCD), contributing to a well-documented ‘disability penalty’, where mothers' relative contribution to paid labour is lower in FOCD than in other families. Yet, it remains unclear whether and how the disability penalty is shaped by family and FOCD-specific policies. We shed light on this association by analysing data from the 2021 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EUSILC) data from four European countries that differ in their family policies frameworks: Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Poland. Our findings suggest that the interplay of family policies and prevailing gender norms may shape the extent of the disability penalty, with crossnational variations in the differences between FOCD and non-FOCD in their gendered division of paid labour. A significant disability penalty is observed only in Poland, a country marked by minimal, means-tested support for FOCD alongside expectations of full-time employment for both parents. In contrast, in Finland, Spain, and the Netherlands, the disability penalty is either negligible or statistically non-significant. These results highlight the importance of a comparative perspective in understanding the disability penalty and highlights the role of family policies in shaping labour market outcomes for FOCD. Findings offer valuable insights for policymakers addressing the challenges faced by FOCD across Europe.

Abstract Past research has extensively examined trends in relative rates of intergenerational social class mobility in 20th-century Western Europe. However, less attention has been given to how patterns of social fluidity may have changed over time. This study addresses this gap by analyzing trends in the social fluidity pattern and its sources, their cross-national commonalities, and their implications for inequalities in relative mobility chances, using data on individuals born in 1938–1987 from 15 Western European countries. Leveraging a topological model to describe patterns of relative rates, this study identifies their sources in three kinds of “primary factors”: class hierarchy, class inheritance, and status affinity. The findings reveal that the apparent stability in the levels and patterns of social fluidity is not due to stability in primary factors. Instead, it reflects changes in primary factors that offset each other. Conversely, changes in the levels and patterns of social fluidity occur when several, if not all, primary factors change in ways that do not fully offset each other. Although stability in social fluidity is common, notable differences emerge in how primary factors change across genders and groups of countries with similar fluidity levels and geopolitical characteristics. Overall, the results suggest a tendency towards stable social fluidity, likely maintained by advantaged parents who continually adjust their mobility strategies to protect their children from social demotion, responding dynamically to changes in the opportunity structure.

ABSTRACT The Czech Republic exemplifies a country with a mandatory childhood vaccination system. A child who has not completed compulsory vaccinations cannot be admitted to preschool until age 5. This paper discusses this measure's impact on parental decision-making processes, interactions with healthcare professionals, and activities and discourses employed by organisations that unite vaccine-hesitant parents. The analysis draws on data from 30 in-depth interviews with vaccine-hesitant parents (all of whom intentionally postponed or refused at least one compulsory vaccination), 19 in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals and 60 hours of observation at three paediatrician surgeries during vaccination consultations. The paper departs from the notion of vaccine hesitancy as a state of indecisiveness or a particular behavioural phenomenon and leans towards specific contexts within which decisions are made. It analyses specific effects of indirect sanctions that are part of mandatory vaccination policies on vaccine-hesitant parents’ interactions with healthcare professionals, strategies, public discourses and decision-making processes regarding vaccination. The paper discusses the measures’ impact in the context of family policies in the Czech Republic (availability of preschool facilities, gender division of labour and social expectations regarding the length of paternal leave).

ABSTRACT Different class theories suggest competing mechanisms behind stratification and assume primacy of different levels of occupational aggregation. By comparing eight class schemes across 12 outcomes with data from more than 546,000 individuals in 61 countries, we offer the most comprehensive multi-scheme comparison of class stratification. Additionally, we evaluate scheme differences across different analytical settings (pooled data, smaller random samples, selected country comparisons). We asses scheme performance by average effect strength and model fit. Results suggest that microclasses are the best analytical choice with sufficiently large samples. If parsimony is taken into account and samples are smaller, aggregated class schemes are superior in terms of model fit. Country differences in relative scheme performance are negligible and unsystematic, supporting the application of class analysis for cross-national comparative designs. The article concludes with a nuanced guide for empirical class analysis.