Longitudinal Social Survey Research Articles

Trust in unions drives egalitarianism: Longitudinal evidence

AbstractDespite the fundamental role of unions in reducing economic inequality, social psychology still needs to incorporate the systematic study of unions concerning the contemporary theories of intergroup inequality. In this study, we do so by testing the reciprocal relationship between trust in unions and social‐dominance orientation egalitarianism (SDO‐E) over time. Using data from the Longitudinal Social Survey of Chile, which is a panel study with a representative sample of urban areas, we carried out a Random Intercept Cross‐Lagged Panel Model with four waves (2016–2019, N = 2972–2153). We controlled the main effect by sex, age, political ideology and educational level. The results show a positive relationship between SDO‐E and trust in unions within and between levels. This means that people who trust in unions also tend to have higher SDO‐E (between effect), and an intraindividual increase in trust in labour unions tends to be followed by an increase in SDO‐E (within effect). Trusting unions as an institution that promotes the hierarchy reduction between workers and employers helps increase people's SDO‐E over time. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Does educational attainment matter for attitudes toward immigrants in Chile? Assessing the causality and generalizability of higher education's so-called "liberalizing effect" on economic and cultural threat.

Despite a large literature consistently showing a relationship between higher levels of education and lower levels of ethnic prejudice, some points of contention remain. First, it remains unclear whether education has a causal effect on attitudes, mainly due to a lack of longitudinal studies. Second, due to the majority of studies on prejudice being conducted in Europe and North America, we do not know to what extent the inverse relationship between education and prejudice is generalizable beyond the "global North." To answer these questions, I study attitudes toward immigrants in Chile in the years 2016-2022, using six waves of the Chilean Longitudinal Social Survey. Chile provides new variations in economic and cultural factors, with its stable albeit highly unequal economy, and increased immigration from culturally similar countries which shed light on possible scope conditions of the so-called liberalizing effect of education. I analyze whether attaining more education has an effect on reducing levels of perceived economic and cultural threat. The findings show that increases in education are associated with both lower levels of perceived economic and cultural threat, with education having a stronger effect on the latter.

The Causal Relationship Between Volunteering and Social Cohesion: A Large Scale Analysis of Secondary Longitudinal Data

It is often taken for granted that social cohesion and volunteering are inextricably related. Previous research suggests both that social cohesion creates a conducive environment for volunteering to emerge and that volunteering itself facilitates feelings of social cohesion. Despite this, much of the existing evidence on this relationship is limited to cross-sectional research that precludes any assessment of potential causality. In this paper we present a secondary analysis of two large scale and longitudinal social surveys in the UK: the Understanding Society Household Longitudinal Study and the Beyond Us and Them project. Using data from these surveys we estimate a cross-lagged longitudinal model to assess the causal relationships between social cohesion and volunteering over time. Across both data sources, involving different time intervals, we find significant cross-lagged bi-directional relationships between social cohesion and volunteering. These findings provide much needed empirical support for the proposition that social cohesion and volunteering are causally related over periods of both months and years. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

The damages of stigma, the benefits of prestige: Examining the consequences of perceived residential reputations on neighbourhood attachment

This study examines how perceived residential reputations – that is, how people think non-residents assess the reputation of their neighbourhood – affect neighbourhood attachment, including residents’ sense of belonging, local civic membership, social relationships and compliance with social rules and norms in the neighbourhood. We focus on Santiago, the capital city of Chile: a highly segregated context. We use data from the Chilean Longitudinal Social Survey (ELSOC, 2016–2019) and information on neighbourhood characteristics. Results show that perceived residential reputations affect neighbourhood attachment, even after adjusting for time-invariant individual heterogeneity and lagged dependent variables. Specifically, perceived stigma reduces residents’ neighbourhood identification, physical rootedness, trust and sociability with neighbours, while positive perceived reputations improve these components of neighbourhood attachment, although to a lesser extent. However, perceived residential reputations do not affect the formation of strong ties between neighbours or local participation, suggesting that residential reputations mainly influence affective components of neighbourhood attachment. We conclude that perceived residential reputations reinforce the influence of individual characteristics and objective neighbourhood conditions in producing diverging patterns of neighbourhood attachment, with broader implications for social inequality in the city.

The determinants of the mobility patterns of the elderly in Switzerland

Like most industrialized countries, Switzerland is characterized by an aging population. However, it differentiates itself from other countries because of its low home-ownership rate. Also, the lack of specialized housing for the elderly encourages them to stay in their current accommodation instead of moving to a smaller place thereby vacating space for family housing. Given this challenge, it is important for governments as well as other housing providers to understand better the needs of the elderly with respect to their housing situation and their patterns of mobility. Accordingly, our research aims to identify the key determinants that trigger the intention, on the part of the elderly in Switzerland, to move. For this purpose, we use secondary data obtained from the Swiss Household Panel, which is a longitudinal social sciences survey which annually interviews a random sample of private households in Switzerland using computer-assisted interviewing. We focus on respondents aged 60 and older over the period from 2013 to 2018, and our sample includes 13 313 observations. We investigate the role of intentions to move as a function of socio-demographic factors, health and life events, dwelling characteristics as well as satisfaction factors. By exploring the importance of these elements on the intention to move within a logistic regression model framework, we confirm the findings of recent studies including those that affirm that the willingness to move decreases with age, and that the elderly do not adapt the size of their home for a smaller dwelling. In addition, while we find no evidence for the impact of dwelling characteristics and health or life events, we provide empirical evidence for socio-demographic and satisfaction factors that influence the intention to move. From our results, we observe that not being satisfied with the accommodation, living in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, judging the accommodation to be too large, and being a tenant, all increase the intention to move. Our findings contribute to the welfare of the elderly in Switzerland by helping governments as well as private entities to plan housing adapted to their needs better.

Extent and implications of omitted ties on network measures in a longitudinal social network survey of people who use drugs

BackgroundPrevious research has revealed under-reporting of personal network members (i.e., alters) in studies involving people who use drugs (PWUD). This analysis (1) characterizes relationships that were more likely to be omitted but later recalled with prompting and (2) identifies network structural characteristics most impacted by these omissions among a sample of PWUD in rural Appalachian Kentucky, an epicenter of the opioid epidemic. MethodsData were collected through longitudinal assessments as part of the Social Networks Among Appalachian People (SNAP) study (2008–2017). Study participants completed interviewer-administered questionnaires that collected social network data via free-listing at baseline and six-month intervals. At visit 5, after free-listing, interviewers prompted participants with the names of previously reported alters. We used modified Poisson regression with generalized estimating equations to identify individual- and relationship-level characteristics associated with an alter being reported only after prompting. We examined the impact of including vs. excluding relationships reported after prompting on local and global sociometric network measures (i.e., betweenness centrality, bridging, density, mean degree, transitivity, cliques, and 2-cores). ResultsRelationships reported only after prompting were more likely to be immediate family (Adjusted Prevalence Ratio [APR]:1.29; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.03–1.63) and less likely to involve sex (APR:0.54; 95% CI: 0.43–0.67). Considerable differences were observed for participant positional rankings of betweenness centrality and bridging, and differences in network density and average degree pre- and post-prompting were statistically significant. ConclusionLongitudinal network studies that aim to assess transmission dynamics, information diffusion, or peer influence should consider the effects of omitted relationships.

Characterization of People with Functional Limitations from ICF Components Using the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (ELPS) of Uruguay.

Characterising people with disabilities at the population level using the ICF approach is a challenge, as it implies that researchers are able to identify variables that can account for the components that make up the multidimensional definition of disability. The purpose of this study is to generate updated information on disability in Uruguay, as there has been no in-depth analysis of how this population lives, how they access the services and benefits that affect their quality of life, and what the significant differences are between those who make up this population. A quantitative analysis was applied to the target population, consisting of participants in the Longitudinal Survey of Social Protection (2016) who reported at least one limitation in performing ADLs and who were in the age range of 18–64 years. Significant differences were found between the different groups in terms of their reported limitations in relation to obtaining necessary services due to their health condition, dropping out of education before completing the compulsory level, low labour market insertion, feelings of loneliness, and low participation. More research needs to be done as it is clear that people with disabilities do not have access to the support they need, which leads to even greater exclusion.

Moderators of Friend Selection and Influence in Relation to Adolescent Alcohol Use.

Friendships form an important context in which adolescents initiate and establish alcohol use patterns, but not all adolescents may be equally affected by this context. Therefore, this study tests whether parenting practices (i.e., parental discipline, parental knowledge, unsupervised time with peers) and individual beliefs (i.e., alcohol descriptive norms, positive social expectations, moral approval of alcohol use) moderate friend selection and influence around alcohol use. Stochastic actor-based models were used to analyze longitudinal social network and survey data from 12,335 adolescents (aged 11 to 17, 51.3% female) who were participating in the PROSPER project. A separate model was estimated for each moderating variable. Adolescents who reported consistent parental discipline, less unsupervised time with peers, higher descriptive alcohol use norms, and less positive social expectations about alcohol use were less likely to select alcohol-using friends. Those who reported consistent parental discipline, better parental knowledge, lower descriptive alcohol use norms, and less positive social expectations were more influenced by their friends' level of alcohol use. Thus, adolescents with these characteristics whose friends frequently use alcohol are at greater risk whereas those whose friends do not use alcohol are at lower risk of using alcohol. The findings show that, although selection and influence processes are connected, they may function in different ways for different groups of adolescents. For some adolescents, it is particularly important to prevent them from selecting alcohol-using friends, because they are more susceptible to influence from such friends. These peer network dynamics might explain how proximal outcomes targeted by many prevention programs (i.e., parenting practices and individual beliefs) translate into changes in alcohol use.

Gender Differences in Retirement Behavior: How Family, Work, and Pension Regime Explain Retirement in Chile

AbstractWhile there is vast research on the Chilean pension system, its financial sustainability, and overall effects on the economy, the literature is scanter about gender differences in retirement and its determinants in the context of a high-income developing country with low rates of female labor market participation and less generous welfare provisions. This study seeks to address these gaps. Employing data from the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (LSPS), we conduct survival analyses to (a) estimate differences in the risk of retirement between men and women, and to (b) investigate how the decision of retirement is influenced by family, work/socioeconomic factors, and pension regimes. Our analyses focused on the age of the first pension receipt. We carry out supplemental analyses on whether pension receipt leads to permanent exit from the labor market. Our results showed that women have a higher risk of receiving their first pension and retire earlier than men. We found that different work experiences prompt women to leave the labor market earlier than men. These results differ from prior research in developed countries that indicated that in countries with low female labor participation rates, women retire later than men.

Gender differences in retirement in Chile and Uruguay

PurposeThis study compares retirement in Chile and Uruguay, and focuses on current individuals legally entitled to retire, particularly women. The article analyses how labour market and family resources shape the access of women and men to social insurance by investigating the likelihood of retirement after reaching the legal age of retirement.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (LSPS), a biannual or triennial longitudinal survey carried out in six Latin American countries. To study gender differences in the chance of being retired, the study conducts a series of logit regression models to model retirement as a function of labour market and life course conditions as well as providing descriptive and contextual information.FindingsMain findings support labour market explanations of gender differences in retirement. Work experience, human capital and contribution densities largely explain the chances of retirement and economic autonomy among elderly women. Further analysis reveal that they are both less likely than men to retire but also to work in old age, limiting their economic autonomy.Research limitations/implicationsData for Uruguay are recent. To maximize comparison between countries, the paper selects the more recent waves with complete administrative information. As a result, the article uses cross-sectional data that might not capture the accumulation of family resources and could fail to provide a complete gendered life course explanation of current disadvantages faced by women.Originality/valueThe article uses novel data in order to place two Latin American countries within mainstream sociological theories of retirement, thus complementing literature that mainly focuses on European and North-American societies. The paper also documents gender gaps in retirement in two different Latin American societies, one with a traditionally generous public pension system (Uruguay) and one with a largely privately-run contributory system (Chile).

Effects of the Geographical Distance on Economic Well-being: Evidence from Colombia with Emphasis on Displaced Population

Forced migration and displacement are two well-known results of internal armed conflicts of nations. A fundamental relationship associated with these humanitarian movements is the one entailing the link between the geographical distance travelled by migrants and their economic well-being. As such a link remains unstudied in previous works, its empirical scrutiny is timely for migration studies. In this paper, we take the Colombian conflict as a case study to analyze this relationship empirically. Using data from the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (ELPS) - 2012, we estimated a regression model, in which we tested different welfare measures and blocks of control variables. Contrary to what we expected, the results show that the elasticity of distance is positive and that it does not determine welfare outcomes for the displaced population.

Diferencias salariales y desajuste educativo en Colombia

Este artículo analiza el desajuste educativo en el primer empleo de los graduados de educación terciaria en Colombia y sus efectos en los ingresos laborales. Con base en los microdatos de dos encuestas (la encuesta longitudinal de protección social y la del Ministerio de Educación), se utilizó la metodología objetiva y subjetiva para calcular el desajuste en el año 2012. Los resultados muestran que entre un 22% y 35% de los egresados se encuentran sobre cualificados a la vez que ganan hasta un 4% menos que los correctamente educados. Ante esto, se debe impulsar la continua revisión de los contenidos teóricos en las asignaturas de la educación terciaria para que se adapten a las competencias reales a usar en el mercado laboral.

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS AND SLEEP QUALITY AMONG CHINESE AGING PARENTS

Relationships with adult children play an important role in older adults’ well-being. However, little is known about the association between parent-child relations and aging parents’ sleep quality, which is an emerging health issue that is closely related to individuals’ physical and mental well-being in later life. With the largest aging population, China has experienced rapid changes of family structure and traditional norms regarding parent-child ties. This study focused on different dimensions of parent-child relationships (i.e., upward/downward financial and instrumental support, emotional closeness) in Chinese aging families. This study examined the association between parent-child relationships and older parents’ sleep quality, comparing one-child and multiple-children Chinese families. Utilizing the 2014 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Aging and Social Survey, we analyze data from 8,450 respondents (aged 60+) who had at least one living child. Descriptive analysis showed that parents with multiple children engaged in more intense financial exchanges, less frequent instrumental support, and lower levels of emotional closeness with their adult children compared to their counterparts with only one child. Logistic regression models revealed that older parents who received more instrumental support were more likely to report sleep difficulty in both one-child and multiple-children families. For parents with multiple children, the overall level of financial transfers from children was negatively associated with having sleep difficulties, while the variability of financial transfers across multiple children was positively associated with having sleep difficulty. Findings highlight the importance of considering family dynamics in studying sleep quality among Chinese older adults.

Het Europese Waardenonderzoek 1981-2017

Abstract This article outlines the main features of the European Values Study (EVS), with special focus on the innovations implemented in the fifth wave (2017). As a large-scale, cross-national and longitudinal social survey program, the EVS provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values, and opinions of citizens all over Europe, unique in its combined focus on how Europeans think about life, family, work, religion, politics, and society. The first round of data collection was initiated in 1981, and every nine years, a representative sample of residents have been questioned in an increasing number of countries (47 European countries/regions in 2008). The fifth wave started in 2017 and is at this moment under completion. The methodological standards of EVS increased over the waves. As part of the Horizon 2020 project Synergies for Europe’s Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences (SERISS), EVS took part in innovations in the field of translation and the implementation of websurveys. The data of the European Values Study are publicly available free of charge. A rich academic literature has accumulated around the original and consecutive surveys: more than 1600 publications are listed in the EVS Bibliography (see europeanvaluesstudy.eu). The final sections of this article describe more in detail the implementation of the EVS 2017 in the Netherlands and end with a peek in the future.

Educational inequalities in disability linked to social security coverage among older individuals in five Latin American countries.

Although Latin American populations are ageing rapidly, many countries have important shortcomings in terms of access to social security coverage. Despite significant improvements regarding access to healthcare, the coverage gap in terms of pensions represents a major challenge for public health and equity in the region. The principal aim of this study was to systematically assess the association between social security coverage and disability among older individuals in five Latin American countries, as well as the extent of existing inequalities and its determinants. To do so we use cross-sectional and comparative data for individuals aged 60 and older in Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Paraguay and Uruguay from the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (ELPS). We used multivariate regression to assess the association between disability and healthcare as well as pension coverage. Concentration indices (CI) and an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach were used to assess overall inequalities in disability according to education as well as their components. With the exception of El Salvador, we find significant inequalities in disability disfavoring lower educated individuals. With regards to healthcare, we find no significant association of healthcare coverage with disability in any of the five countries, nor does it explain educational inequalities in disability. However, pension access was associated with lower risks of disability in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay, and explains a substantial share of educational inequality in Chile, Colombia and Paraguay. Whereas significant changes have already been made regarding universal healthcare coverage, the results suggest that expanding access to pensions may not only lead to improvements in health among older individuals in the region, but also substantially reduce socio-economic inequalities in health and successful ageing.

Reliability of Longitudinal Social Surveys of Access to Higher Education: The Case of Next Steps in England

Longitudinal social surveys are widely used to understand which factors enable or constrain access to higher education. One such data resource is the Next Steps survey comprising an initial sample of 16,122 pupils aged 13–14 attending English state and private schools in 2004, with follow up annually to age 19–20 and a further survey at age 25. The Next Steps data is a potentially rich resource for studying inequalities of access to higher education. It contains a wealth of information about pupils’ social background characteristics—including household income, parental education, parental social class, housing tenure and family composition—as well as longitudinal data on aspirations, choices and outcomes in relation to education. However, as with many longitudinal social surveys, Next Steps suffers from a substantial amount of missing data due to item non-response and sample attrition which may seriously compromise the reliability of research findings. Helpfully, Next Steps data has been linked with more robust administrative data from the National Pupil Database (NPD), which contains a more limited range of social background variables, but has comparatively little in the way of missing data due to item non-response or attrition. We analyse these linked datasets to assess the implications of missing data for the reliability of Next Steps. We show that item non-response in Next Steps biases the apparent socioeconomic composition of the Next Steps sample upwards, and that this bias is exacerbated by sample attrition since Next Steps participants from less advantaged social backgrounds are more likely to drop out of the study. Moreover, by the time it is possible to measure access to higher education, the socioeconomic background variables in Next Steps are shown to have very little explanatory power after controlling for the social background and educational attainment variables contained in the NPD. Given these findings, we argue that longitudinal social surveys with much missing data are only reliable sources of data on access to higher education if they can be linked effectively with more robust administrative data sources. This then raises the question—why not just use the more robust datasets?

The Role of Social Influence and Network Churn in Beliefs about Electronic Medical Record Technology

Abstract The successful implementation of technology often hinges on individual beliefs about the innovation being introduced. Little is known about how social networks shape these beliefs. In this study, we examine: (1) whether individual beliefs about technology are influenced by the beliefs of their peers within their social networks (network content); and (2) whether changes in the composition of the social network over time (network churn) moderates the effect of peer beliefs on individual beliefs. We offer and test hypotheses about these relationships using longitudinal social network survey data from hospital staff collected 2 – 4 months before (N = 256) and 3 – 5 months after (N = 284) the implementation of a new electronic medical record (EMR) system at a large, academic hospital. Our findings suggest that peer beliefs about new technology significantly and negatively affect individual beliefs about technology in the early stages of EMR implementation. We also find that the effect of peer beliefs on individual beliefs is stronger in more stable social networks (i.e., social networks that experience few tie deletions over time) and weaker in less stable social networks (i.e., social networks that experience many tie deletions over time). Our study examines social influence in a novel context – the implementation of EMR systems in the hospital setting – and extends network theory by conceptualizing network churn as a moderating variable that may amplify or dampen the effect of networks.

The Niakhar Social Networks and Health Project

This paper presents details of the design and implementation of the Niakhar Social Networks and Health Project (NSNHP), a large, mixed-methods project funded by the U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). By redressing fundamental problems in conventional survey network data collection methods, the project is aimed at improving inferences concerning the association between social network structures and processes and health behaviors and outcomes. Fielded in collaboration with an ongoing demographic and health surveillance system in rural Senegal, the NSNHP includes qualitative data concerning the dimensions of social association and health ideologies and behaviors in the study zone, two panels of a new social network survey, and several supplementary and affiliated data sets.•Longitudinal social network survey linked to pre-existing surveillance data•Addresses fundamental methodological constraints in previous social network data•Enables social network analyses of health beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes

China Labor-force Dynamics Survey

The China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), launched by Sun Yat-Sen University, is the first national longitudinal social survey targeted at the labor force in China. Using a rotating panel design, the survey is conducted every two years and has accumulated three waves of data now. In this article, we introduce the theoretical background, sample design, and implementation of the survey. We also summarize some scholarly themes which CLDS can be applied to by presenting descriptive statistical results.

Mediation of the effect of childhood socioeconomic position by educational attainment on adult chronic disease in Chile.

We estimated the roles of childhood socioeconomic position (ChSEP) and education attainment on chronic diseases in Chilean adults, mediated through structural determinants and health behaviors, to identify potential pro-equity interventions. We analyzed Chile's longitudinal Social Protection Surveys, a national sample of 14,788 adults with follow-up to 2009. Controlled direct effects (CDE) and natural effects (NDE and NIE) of ChSEP and education on number of chronic diseases were estimated with negative binomial models. CDE of low ChSEP with education fixed at 12years showed a 12% increase with 4% indirect effects. CDEs at favorable levels of BMI, smoking, alcohol use, and physical activity were similar. CDE estimates for education adjusted for ChSEP were larger with negligible mediation. CDEs for women were generally larger. Low ChSEP exerts a primarily direct effect on later chronic disease, modestly mediated by education. Education attainment showed larger direct effects with minimal mediation by behaviors. Strengthening current-early child development and education policies, particularly gender aspects, may reduce social inequalities and key pathways for reducing chronic disease inequalities in Chile.