Role Of Individual Resources Research Articles

Patterns of Human Capital Formation

The main goal of the article is to identify the basic patterns of the formation of human capital (HC). An especially valuable and scarce resource of the modern economy is becoming a creative skilled worker capable of generating ideas, as well as creating and implementing new technological solutions and products. The development of the economy leads to significant transformations in the generation of resource potential, and changes in the role of individual resources. Human capital begins to play a dominant role in the resource hierarchy. It is the HC that sets in motion the production processes and determines the efficiency of using the entire resource potential. The methods of aspect analysis and of apperception used in this study made it possible to identify modern patterns peculiar to the formation of human capital in the economy, and to emphasize its objective importance and ability to significantly influence the development of society. During the research, the authors proved that human capital acquires the status of the main resource in the economy, the quantitative characteristics of the workforce capacity give way to the role of qualitative characteristics, and the development of STP requires a new employee formation to dominate the intellectual component.

Heterogeneity in Trajectories of Life Satisfaction After Reunification: The Role of Individual Resources and Life Stage in Former East Germany

For people living in the former East Germany, reunification with the former West Germany fundamentally transformed the sociopolitical system and most domains of everyday life. Previous research has revealed temporal shifts in average life satisfaction after reunification in the former East German population as a whole, but so far little is known about heterogeneity in patterns of adjustment within the population. Building on evidence of considerable diversity in trajectories of adjustment to other critical life events, in the current study we use longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and growth mixture models to identify typical yet distinct trajectories of life satisfaction among former East Germans, covering the period just before reunification and four years thereafter. We identified four trajectories: continuously satisfied (experienced by 17% of the sample), upward adjusters (24%), downward adjusters (34%), and continuously dissatisfied (25%). Results of logistic regression analyses indicate that the propensity to follow a particular trajectory was strongly predicted by an individual’s baseline economic (employment, but not income), socio-relational (loneliness) and personal (education, satisfaction with health) resources. Whereas former East Germans with more resources just prior to reunification were more likely to maintain high or increase in life satisfaction, their peers with fewer resources were more apt to either maintain low or decrease in life satisfaction. People in their mid-twenties through mid-fifties (i.e., prime working age) at the time of reunification were also more likely to maintain low life satisfaction. Accordingly, reunification affected the unfolding of individual lives differently.

Immigrants’ mobility towards native-dominated neighbourhoods: the role of individual resources, country of origin, and settlement context

ABSTRACT In Sweden, immigrants’ integration and residential patterns are much disputed. Segregation is seen as a threat to social cohesion and policies at least rhetorically aim to create mixed neighbourhoods. Immigrants’ settlement patterns and residential mobility are often explained with competing spatial assimilation and place stratification theories. Building from these two theories, this study investigates immigrants’ mobility towards native-dominated neighbourhoods by clarifying the role of immigrants’ country of origin in association with socioeconomic status, while emphasizing the importance of settlement context. The paper presents a survival analysis based on everyone who migrated to Sweden from 1990 to 2010. The conclusion is that immigrants’ backgrounds strongly shape residential outcomes, and that spatial integration can be facilitated by a better housing market position at the start of the housing career in Sweden, by labour market participation, and good educational attainment. There are better prospects of ending up in native-dominated neighbourhoods outside metropolitan areas, whereas in metropolitan areas, increase in income has less impact on residential mobility and the opportunity structures for spatial integration are much more constrained, especially for refugees. The study finds more support for the place stratification theory, especially for the weak version, than for spatial assimilation.

The role of individual resources, health behaviour and age perception as determinants of sports participation in older age

AbstractSports participation contributes to maintaining health and wellbeing in old age, hence a deeper understanding of its various determinants is necessary. Previous research has primarily focused on either the effects of individual resources or age-specific attitudes to sports participation. However, a deeper understanding of the inter-relationships between these variables is required to develop effective policies to promote sports participation in ageing societies. To address the hypothesised inter-relationships, we consider both individual resources as well as age-specific attitudes and behaviours in order to integrate them simultaneously in our analysis. Furthermore, the analysis will be differentiated according to the three social status groups. The sample contains 1,560 retired persons, aged 65 years and older, based on the fifth wave (2014) of the German Ageing Survey. Multiple Poisson regression models were estimated to test our hypotheses. After adjusting for demographic variables, greater individual resources are associated with more regular sports participation. The findings also reveal that positive age perception and healthy behaviours are related to sports participation. Slight mediation effects between the different variables can be observed. Furthermore, the effect structures vary across different social status groups. The findings show that both individual resources and age-specific behaviours and attitudes are independent determinants of sports participation in older age. Our results confirm slight inter-relationships between socio-economic resources and age-specific attitudes.

Parenthood and Quality of Life in Old Age: The Role of Individual Resources, the Welfare State and the Economy

We analyse the relationship between parenthood and quality of life in old age. Our main rationale is that the effect of having children on the quality of life varies with individual financial well-being as well as with the societal context, e.g. the welfare state and the economy. Analyses are based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (wave 2 and 4) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (wave 6) with respondents aged 50 plus from 19 European countries in all. We find the effect of parenthood on quality of life to depend on individual resources, the economy and social service expenditures. Older persons with difficulties in making ends meet, living in less affluent countries with lower gross domestic product per capita and welfare states with higher spending on social services benefit the most from parenthood in late life. Women and men in financial ease do not benefit from parenthood in old age. We do not find substantial gender differences in the relationship of parenthood and quality of life.

Economic Hardship and Well-Being: Examining the Relative Role of Individual Resources and Welfare State Effort in Resilience Against Economic Hardship

With the aftermath of the economic crisis starting to fold out, the extent and the conditions under which the experience of economic hardship thwarts subjective well-being spark academic interest. In this paper, we examine the cushioning impact of three immaterial buffers embedded within civil society—namely social networks, religiosity, and confidence in politics—in combination with the cushioning role of the welfare state. Analyzing the 2010 wave of the European Social Survey, the results confirm that the experience of economic hardship is inversely related to happiness. All three proposed protective measures cushion the negative impact of economic strain on happiness, whereby the positive effect of social networks and confidence in politics is stronger in countries with lower levels of social expenditure. The latter finding provides some evidence for the crowding out-thesis but mainly suggests that a strong welfare state can take over the role of protective buffers in civil society, which is helpful as such buffers are less present among the most vulnerable social groups. The results of the analysis are discussed in relation to social science research and public policy.

Risk, compensatory, protective, and vulnerability factors related to youth gambling problems.

This study explores the additive (i.e., risk or compensatory) or moderating (i.e., protective or exacerbating) role of individual resources (social bonding, personal competence, and social competence) and environmental risk (family, peers, and neighborhood) in regard to the association between established personal risk attributes (i.e., impulsivity, anxiety) and youth gambling problems. Using a cross-sectional design, regression analyses indicated that among a sample of mostly first-generation immigrant adolescents from low-income homes (N = 1,055; M = 15.03; SD = 1.64), social bonding was associated with a decrease in gambling problems (odds ratio [OR] = 0.15, p < .01) while peer and neighborhood risk were associated with an increase in gambling problems (OR = 2.24, p = .01 and OR = 2.31, p = .01, respectively), net of personal risk attributes. In terms of protective processes, no putative moderating effect was found for composite individual resources. The findings are discussed with respect to the roles of compensatory, risk, and protective processes.

The political transnationalism of Ecuadorians in Barcelona, Madrid and Milan: the role of individual resources, organizational engagement and the political context

AbstractIn this article, we examine the transnational political engagement of Ecuadorians in three European cities – Barcelona, Madrid and Milan. Drawing on previous studies that emphasize the role of organizational and institutional resources for political mobilization (as well as those that take into consideration respondents’ resources and the migration process), we analyse the results of a survey conducted between 2006 and 2008 on approximately 300 Ecuadorian individuals in each of these three cities. We examine two different dimensions of Ecuadorian political transnationalism at the individual level, namely attitudinal and participatory. Contrary to previous findings, our results show that recently arrived Ecuadorians and those with less stable household conditions are more involved in transnational politics. Associational involvement shows multiple effects. Engagement in Ecuadorian associations fosters political interest in and information about Ecuador, whereas involvement in any organization promotes electoral transnational politics. The political context is only relevant when accounting for participation in Ecuadorian elections.