Tuesday 14th July      Wednesday 15th July      Thursday 16th July      Friday 17th July     

Tuesday 14th July, 14:00 - 15:30 Room: L-101

Analyses of social change with cross-sectional and longitudinal data 2
Convenor	Ms Malgorzata Mikucka (Universite catholique de Louvain )
Coordinator 1	Mr Francesco Sarracino (STATEC, Luxembourg)

Session Details

The availability of repeated cross-sectional surveys and of panel data allows analyzing social change over time. This kind of analyses became popular after the recent studies on the relationship between economic growth and the trends of subjective well-being. Since then, this approach has been applied in various domains. Currently, researchers are increasingly interested in combining longitudinal and cross-sectional approaches to study social change. However, this field of research is still in its infancy and consequences of various methodological choices are still not well understood.

This session invites papers discussing the conceptual and methodological problems of analyzing social change over time with data such as macro-level time series, cross-sectional, and longitudinal surveys. In particular we welcome substantive research which investigates social change over time, presents novel methodological approaches, as well as postulates “good practices” in analyzing such data. The topics include, but are not restricted to:

1. Research which investigates short- and long-term trends over time, as well as discusses methods of estimating trends and their consequences;
2. Analyses of relationships between changes occurring in various domains of social life, performed both within time-series and comparative frameworks;
3. Papers that distinguish between the effects of cross-sectional differences and the effects of overtime changes of the same factors;
4. Studies analyzing social change with comparative panel data.

Paper Details

1. Long term trends in life satisfaction in Europe explained(1973-2012
Dr Marc Callens (Research Centre of the Flemish Government)

In our earlier research based on Eurobarometer micro-data for eight European countries/regions we have found that in Flanders net time trends are more important than life cycle or generation effects.
With each of the three temporal dimensions considered (trend, birth cohort and life cycle), one can associate different economical and/or sociological explanations. In this paper we focus on the explanation of long-term life satisfaction trends across Europe.
We do so by enriching Eurobarometer micro-data (1973-2012) with macro-level time series and applying Multilevel Hierarchical Age Period Cohort analysis techniques to explain the variances associated

2. Life satisfaction and domain satisfactions amid rapid economic growth: the case of South Korea
Professor Chris Barrington-leigh (McGill University)

I use a rich household panel from South Korea including life satisfaction, domain satisfactions, and extensive income data to analyse the effects of recent growth.
Due to the rapid pace of change, important life-course changes are confounded with cohort conditions. Making use of conventional, non-parametric, and semi-parametric estimates of subjective well-being variables, I disentangle, where possible, these cross-sectional and longitudinal effects, finding a strong role for both socially-mediated and material gains. These account for what must be one of the most prominent, sustained increases in overall life satisfaction observed in any nation so far.

3. Do changes in integration policies have an impact on people’s attitudes towards immigrants? Evidence from a dynamic cross-country comparison of European countries.
Miss Marie-sophie Callens (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) & University of Leuven)

This paper looks at the relation between integration policies and native-born’s attitudes toward migrants in 27 countries. It approaches this research issue in a dynamic perspective and allows seeing whether changes in integration policies lead to attitudinal changes. In order to deal with the cross-country and cross-time design of the study, we use a Multiple-Group Multiple Indicator Structural Equation Modeling (MGSEM) approach on the European Social Survey (ESS) and the data from the MIPEX database for integration policies covering years 2008, 2010 and 2012.

4. Differences between data sources and survey types: the impact of the educational expansion on wage inequality in Switzerland
Dr Ursina Kuhn (FORS)
Ms Laura Ravazzini (University of Neuchâtel)
Professor Christian Suter (University of Neuchâtel)

This contribution looks at the consequences of the educational expansion on wage inequality. We decompose wage inequality by educational groups using three widely used high-quality surveys from Switzerland: the Swiss Labour Force Survey (1991-2012), the Swiss Wage Structure Survey (1994-2012) and the Swiss Household Panel (1999-2013), which differ strongly in survey design and data collection process. Although we harmonised the data as far as possible, findings regarding the evolution of wage inequality over time and the impact of education differ strongly between the three surveys. This illustrates the severe consequences of survey design and data collection

5. Trends in Exposure to Industrial Air Toxins for Different Racial and Socioeconomic Groups: A Spatial and Temporal Examination of Environmental Inequality in the U.S. from 1995 to 2004
Professor Kerry Ard (the Ohio State University )

A core research interest in the field of environmental inequality is the unequal exposure to
industrial toxins by race and social class. However since the beginning of the field in the 1980's there
has been a dramatic decline in air pollution across the U.S. To date there has been no studies
investigating if these declines have mitigated racial and socioeconomic gaps in exposure to industrial
toxins. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by developing a unique longitudinal dataset of air
pollution exposure estimates linked to census data to examine exposure over time for different groups.