Unequal electoral turnout between younger and older citizens has long been a topic of debate, and the size of this age gap differs from one country to another across Europe. Such cross-national variation has not been sufficiently addressed in the literature and thus raises the question of why some countries experience more severe representational failure in electoral turnout than others. A common interpretation is that younger citizens are depicted as apathetic, and their behaviour is intended to be read as a story of the absent generation from political life. While existing literature may show lower turnout among young individuals, attributing this solely to a lack of interest or engagement, it overlooks broader structural issues that may be at play. To move beyond this behavioural blame game, we analyse the relationship between political representation and the age gap in voter turnout using time-series cross-sectional data from rounds 1–11 of the European Social Survey. This research is built on the assumption that unequal participation is due not to a lack of interest in the public good but rather to the representative performance of institutions. Representative performance generally defines a set of descriptive and substantive forms of the representation that institutions are supposed to deliver a meaningful pathway to individuals to engage with electoral politics. Alongside other recent research, this work attempts to contribute to shifting the discourse away from the deeply rooted notion of absenteeism and toward a focus on the representation of institutions.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enhance flexibility but blurs work–life boundaries—a phenomenon termed the “autonomy paradox.” Using the European Social Survey Round 10, we investigate how communication patterns, job demands, and resources shape employee perceptions of ICT, which we categorise as positive, negative, or paradoxical. We ask whether positive attitudes reflect genuinely supportive working conditions ormask strain. Our findings reveal that control over daily work is the only predictor of an exclusively positive perception. Phone communication with superiors, messaging with colleagues, and feeling part of a strong team predict a paradoxical perception. However, even these factors can increase the likelihood of viewing ICT as helpful when control over daily work remains high. Job demands alone do not account for paradoxical outcomes. The results suggest that the ICT paradox is not inherent to technology itself but emerges from the relational and workplace contexts.

The paradox of well-being suggests that the relationship between age and subjective well-being follows a U-shaped curve: well-being decreases initially, reaches its lowest point in midlife, and then increases in older age despite worsening objective life conditions. However, previous studies provide mixed results: some confirm the presence of a U-curve, while others find a linear decline in well-being or a more complex nonlinear relationship. For Ukraine, the results are also inconsistent, and most publications do not specifically focus on this country. This study examines whether the relationship between age and the cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective well-being in Ukraine follows a positive quadratic (U-shaped) pattern or a negative linear one. Based on six waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2005 to 2022, this study analyzes the relationship between age and subjective well-being among Ukrainians, measured through life satisfaction and happiness. ESS is used because its repeated cross-sectional design enables the separation of age, cohort, and period effects, allowing a closer approximation of the “net” association between age and well-being. To address methodological challenges related to age–period–cohort confounding, the analysis employs cross-classified random effects regression models that simultaneously account for cohort and period effects. Regression models show that both linear and quadratic associations of age with these well-being measures are statistically significant. Nevertheless, the U-curve is observable for life satisfaction, though not very pronounced, while happiness shows only a negative linear relationship. The findings highlight the need for further research on the paradox of well-being in Ukraine, particularly by incorporating additional ESS waves collected during the full-scale Russian invasion, exploring more complex nonlinear specifications, and examining potential mediating and moderating mechanisms between age and well-being.

COVID-19 has profoundly impacted physical and mental health worldwide, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations, including immigrants. While subjective health (SH) is widely used as a measure of well-being, little is known about how personal values influence SH differently between immigrants and nonimmigrants during crises. This study explores the relationship between personal values and SH, focusing on differences between immigrant and nonimmigrant groups. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we analyzed responses from 32,963 individuals across 20 countries (Round 10: 2020–22). Multilevel modeling showed that Axis_open ( Openness to change over Conservation ) was positively associated with SH in both immigrant and nonimmigrant groups. However, Axis_self ( Self-transcendence over Self-enhancement ) was not significant among nonimmigrants, while in the immigrant group, higher Axis_self scores were significantly associated with poorer SH. These findings underscore the importance of considering cultural and migratory contexts when addressing the health implications of personal values.

In an evolving European context, the boundaries between professional and personal life are becoming increasingly important in shaping individual subjective well-being. The growing emphasis on Work-Life balance reflects broader societal transformations, including changes in labour market structures, shifting family dynamics, and evolving cultural attitudes toward employment. While previous works have analysed employment conditions for immigrants, few studies have focused on their perception of job satisfaction comparing them with natives. This study analyses perceived job satisfaction among workers using data from the 10th round of the European Social Survey (2020-2022). A series of linear regression models is applied to analyse the satisfaction of workers with low, medium and high skilled jobs among natives, second-generation migrants, and individuals with a migration background. The focus is centred on the effect on work satisfaction of three domains: job characteristics, sociality and household dynamics, and perceived health. Using the Work-Life balance index to divide countries into groups, it was found that states with a low balance experience more pronounced effects, with job skill levels playing a much more significant role in shaping outcomes.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease associated with significant physical and psychological burden. Tildrakizumab, an interleukin-23 p19 inhibitor, has demonstrated efficacy in treating moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis both in clinical trials and real-world setting. However, limited data are available on the impact of the effective treatment of psoriasis on the psychological health of patients. The aim of this study was to assess changes in psychological well-being, as well as clinical and quality-of-life outcomes, in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis treated with tildrakizumab in routine clinical practice in Italy. This was an interim analysis (IA) of a 52-week multicenter, prospective, observational study. Adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis initiating tildrakizumab were enrolled. Endpoints focused on well-being and psychological health and included changes, from baseline to week28, in Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) scores, Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), European Social Survey (ESS) items, and World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Effectiveness was also monitored via Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), and safety via treatment-emergent adverse event reporting. A total of 115 patients were included (mean age 52.5years, 60.8% male), 102 receiving ≥ 1 dose of tildrakizumab and completing DASS-21 evaluations at baseline and week28. At week28, improvements were observed in DASS-21 subscales [depression (-2.6, 95%CI -2.0 to -1.0), anxiety (-2.3, 95%CI -2.0 to -1.0), and stress (-3.4, 95%CI -4.0 to -2.0)], accompanied by marked PASI reduction (-13.7, 95%CI -12.8 to -10.1). DLQI, ESS, and WHO-5 scores also improved. Adverse events were generally mild or moderate, with no unexpected safety signals. In this real-world IA, tildrakizumab was observed to improve the psychological well-being of patients, reflected by a reduction in all items of the DASS-21 scale and, in parallel, confirmed its effectiveness in managing physical symptoms of psoriasis, establishing its role in the holistic management of psoriasis.

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of labour regulation depends not only on the formal articulation of rights, but on the institutional arrangements through which those rights are enforced and distributed across workers. This is particularly salient for regulations governing working time and employee availability, where outcomes are shaped by power relations in the workplace and persistent gendered divisions of paid and unpaid labour. The introduction of right‐to‐disconnect (R2D) legislation in several European countries provides a valuable opportunity to examine how procedural labour rights operate across different industrial relations systems and how they generate gender‐differentiated outcomes. Rather than constituting a single policy model, R2D provisions vary substantially in their reliance on collective bargaining, firm‐level discretion and individual characteristics. Using data from the European Social Survey between 2010 and 2022 and exploiting the staggered introduction of R2D policies in France, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Portugal, this study estimates effects on subjective wellbeing among employees in teleworkable occupations. Applying a dynamic difference‐in‐differences approach, the analysis identifies modest average improvements in wellbeing in countries where R2D provisions are embedded within stronger industrial relations systems. Gendered analyses show that these benefits accrue more consistently to men than to women, highlighting how digital labour regulation may interact with unequal distributions of paid and unpaid work.

Abstract Over the past half-century, structural developments in production systems and labour markets have brought about substantial shifts in the occupational structure. Individuals’ positions within these societal transformations are widely understood to shape their expectations of the future and their political preferences. While the focus in much recent research in this regard has been on occupations’ susceptibility to automation, this study places the level of skill requirements at the centre of the analysis. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find robust support for this perspective. Individuals in occupations with higher skill requirements tend to anticipate fewer personal economic difficulties and hold more positive views about the direction of societal development, while also being less supportive of government redistribution and less inclined to vote for the radical right. In contrast, the theoretically expected relationships between automation-risk measures and these outcomes generally disappear once skill level requirements are controlled for. Our theoretical arguments and empirical findings suggest that the role of automation risk may be overstated in understanding how occupational positions shape social and political outcomes, and that the level of skill requirements carries greater explanatory weight in shaping individuals’ expectations about the future and their political preferences in knowledge societies.

ABSTRACT Flexible working arrangements, including control over one's schedule, aim to enhance workers’ well-being and work-life balance. However, flexible working can be perceived negatively or stigmatized in some contexts, undermining the potential benefits of flexible work use. This study investigates how flexible working time relates to weekly work hours across European countries, considering variations in flexibility stigma, gender, and parental status. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey 2021 and Eurobarometer Flash Survey on Work-Life Balance 2018, multilevel modeling with cross-level interactions reveals several key patterns. At the individual level, there is a gendered compensation mechanism: men work more hours when having schedule control, while women's hours are similar across working time arrangements. Mothers consistently work fewer hours, with a more substantial gap between mothers and non-mothers among those with schedule control. No such gap exists for men. At the contextual level, higher flexibility stigma is linked to longer work hours only for men with schedule control, suggesting that men may overcompensate for negative perceptions by working more time. These findings support the flexibility paradox: rather than optimizing work hours, flexible arrangements may intensify work demands, particularly for men. This tendency can exacerbate gender disparities in the workplace.

ABSTRACT Egalitarian gender role attitudes are linked to gender equality in various socioeconomic outcomes. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), this study examines the relationship between country-of-ancestry gender culture and the gender gap in gender role attitudes among second-generation immigrants from 46 different countries of ancestry residing in 18 host countries. The results indicate that a higher degree of gender equality in the country-of-ancestry is associated with more egalitarian gender role attitudes for both females and males, with the association being significantly stronger for males. We find that the gender gap is smaller among second-generation immigrants originating from countries with greater gender equality. Moreover, we provide evidence that vertical transmission of gender culture from parents to their children is less pronounced for second-generation immigrants with only one foreign-born parent than for those with two foreign-born parents.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how voters with an immigration background respond to anti-immigrant parties through their voting behaviour. Immigrant voters face a paradoxical situation at the ballot box: while they may align with parties based on ideological or programmatic proximity, their group identity is often politicised and targeted during campaigns, making identity-based considerations particularly salient. We build on existing literature by emphasising the role of immigrant social identity and ingroup sentiment towards other immigrants, exploring the variation in political support across native and immigrant voters. We test our arguments using a combined dataset of individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and party-level data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) across twenty-three European countries between 2018 and 2020. Our empirical analysis reveals that immigrant voters tend not to support anti-immigrant parties compared to native citizens, a pattern that persists even among right-leaning voters. Furthermore, we find that individual attitudes towards immigration do not always translate directly into voting behaviour, resulting in lower support for anti-immigrant parties among immigrant voters. This holds true even for first-generation immigrants who arrived in the host society at an early age and spent their youth there. By focussing on parties' positions on immigration policy beyond their left-right ideology, these findings highlight the moderating effect of immigrant identity on the traditional relationship between political ideology and party support, contributing to a deeper understanding of voting behaviour and immigrant integration in Europe.

Abstract Despite increasing concerns over socioeconomic barriers in access to doctoral education, relatively little is known about the degree to which PhDs are selected in terms of their social background. In this paper, we use combined data on over 200,000 individuals from the European Social Survey, the European Values Study, and the World Values Survey to estimate the strength of the relationship between parental education and child PhD attainment within 26 European countries. We find that intergenerational mobility into PhD degrees is somewhat higher in the Nordic countries, and somewhat lower in the Eastern European countries in our sample, but also that mobility is generally high, that PhDs are socioeconomically diverse, and that mobility differences between the countries in our sample are generally small.

Abstract Using data from the European Social Survey we find that women overestimate significantly domestic unemployment after controlling for all relevant concurring factors. We also show that our findings are robust across age, income, and education subsamples, and in different countries and ESS waves. The gender bias is not accounted for by discrimination or differences in expectations about future unemployment and persists when we assume that respondents have in mind their gender-specific unemployment rate. We provide evidence in favour of the affect intensity channel showing that women report significantly higher values for affect intensity proxies and that subgroups with higher predicted affect intensity have significantly higher unemployment misperception.

Abstract Religion has long been considered an important determinant of voting behaviour. However, the secularisation of Western societies has changed its role. Secularisation not only limits the political relevance of religion, it may also affect the nature of religious cleavages themselves. While extant literature suggests that differences between religious denominations are in decline, with regard to differences between religious and non-religious voters there are two divergent expectations, (1) that these differences are also in decline and (2) that there is an increased polarisation between the religious and the non-religious. For the latter expectation, evidence has already been found regarding the United States. In this paper, we examine whether a similar change can be observed in Western Europe. Combining data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and information on parties’ positions from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), we assess the nature of over-time changes in the connection between religion and the vote choice. The results point to an increased polarisation between members of a Christian church and the non-religious, however, we also find that non-Christians are more similar to the non-religious than to Christians. We also uncover a growing division between Catholics and Protestants that does not fit common expectations. These findings challenge earlier work on the political consequences of secularisation and lead to new research questions.

Recent public discourse suggests a growing polarization between young men and women in gender-role attitudes. This research note evaluates this claim by examining long-term trends in gender-role attitudes among young adults (aged 20–29) across nine world regions over four decades. Drawing on pooled data from the World Values Survey, the International Social Survey Programme, the European Values Study, and the European Social Survey, we track three dimensions of gender egalitarianism covering attitudes towards gender equality in the public sphere, maternal work–family compatibility attitudes and attitudes toward gender roles in the private sphere. The results do not support the notion of a generalized gender polarization, as divergence does not occur across all dimensions. Attitudes regarding women’s and mothers’ paid work have become more egalitarian, and gender differences have narrowed or remained modest across most regions. By contrast, gender gaps persist in attitudes towards men’s labour market primacy and fathers’ suitability for childcare, and in some regions have widened, partly driven by declining egalitarianism among young men. Thus, convergence in views on women’s and mothers’ employment has not been matched by a comparable shift in attitudes toward men’s roles, pointing to an uneven transformation of gender norms with potential demographic implications.

Abstract Previous research has noted a decline in the explanatory power of social class for political behaviour, focusing primarily on economic interests. This article examines how social class relates to cultural and material values, analysing the differences across classes in both dimensions. To explore this, the study uses data from the European Social Survey (ESS, rounds 1 to 11) and Schwartz’s human values framework to capture both cultural and material dimensions. The results show that working classes have higher conservation in the cultural dimension and greater support for equality in the material dimension. The middle and upper classes show stronger self-transcendence in the cultural dimension, reflecting a social-oriented cultural focus rather than material concerns. The upper class stands out for openness to change in the cultural dimension, while material concerns remain highly relevant in a negative sense, as indicated by their low support for equality. Small owners prioritise self-enhancement and openness to change, focusing on individual-oriented cultural values. The relative importance of these dimensions differs across classes: among unskilled and skilled workers, material and cultural concerns are balanced, whereas in the middle class cultural values are more salient. In the upper class, cultural priorities are relevant, but the negative material orientation as opposed to equality, remains strong and cannot be considered secondary.

Abstract Regardless of the rise of egalitarian parenting, maternal and paternal roles are subject to different expectations, shaped by cultural and institutional factors. We examine levels of (dis)approval of parents' full‐time work in 26 European countries and ask: Do attitudes toward mothers' and fathers' full‐time work vary across countries? What are the sociodemographic, cultural, and family policy‐related institutional factors that explain these attitudes? To what extent can the gender arrangement framework help to understand differences in attitudes toward full‐time working parents? Data from the 2018 European Social Survey was analyzed using cross‐tabulation and multilevel analysis. Results reveal that the ideal of motherhood continues to be culturally more contested than that of fatherhood. Individual‐level sociodemographic factors are more relevant to attitudes toward mothers' than to fathers' full‐time work, while country‐level factors connected to gender, work culture, and family policy are similar in their effects on attitudes toward mothers' and fathers' full‐time work.

Consumer boycotts are vital tools for shaping corporate and socio-political landscapes. Despite extensive research, the influence of individual and sociocultural factors on boycott participation across diverse European nations remains unclear. This study addresses this gap by applying machine learning techniques, such as decision trees and gradient boosting, to data from 24 countries in the European Social Survey. The analysis identifies civic activities, including petition signing and volunteering, as key drivers of consumer boycott participation, alongside political interest, environmental concern, and Internet usage. It also reveals complex interactions with age, religiosity, and national context. By integrating AI into consumer activism research, the study enhances predictive accuracy and deepens the theoretical understanding of political and civic behavior dynamics. Understanding the predictors of consumer boycotts can help policymakers and organizations design more effective strategies for addressing civic demands, potentially influencing market responses to consumer activism.

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between personal values and participation in consumer boycotts across countries, taking into account the role of national culture. The study is based on data from the 11th round of the European Social Survey (2023–2024), covering 27 European countries and Israel (N = 46,162). Personal values were measured using Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21), while national culture was described by Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions. The results confirm that self-transcendence and openness to change values along with lower levels of conservation values are associ-ated with greater involvement in boycotts. Moreover, the cultural dimension of indulgence was found to strengthen the positive influence of universalism, benevolence and self-direction values on boycott participation, suggesting that a higher tolerance for emotional expression in more indulgent countries may lead to greater boycott participation. These findings extend previous research by demonstrating that the relationship between personal values and consumer boycotts is shaped by the cultural context.

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between personal values and participation in consumer boycotts across countries, taking into account the role of national culture. The study is based on data from the 11th round of the European Social Survey (2023–2024), covering 27 European countries and Israel (N = 46,162). Personal values were measured using Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21), while national culture was described by Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions. The results confirm that self-transcendence and openness to change values along with lower levels of conservation values are associ-ated with greater involvement in boycotts. Moreover, the cultural dimension of indulgence was found to strengthen the positive influence of universalism, benevolence and self-direction values on boycott participation, suggesting that a higher tolerance for emotional expression in more indulgent countries may lead to greater boycott participation. These findings extend previous research by demonstrating that the relationship between personal values and consumer boycotts is shaped by the cultural context.