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

Thursday 16th July, 09:00 - 10:30 Room: N-132

Values and Value Change in a Changing World 2
Convenor	Dr Malina Voicu (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences )
Coordinator 1	Dr Hermann Dülmer (University of Cologne)

Session Details

Values are socialized during formative years and deeply rooted in individual personality. However, people do not always strictly follow their value priorities acquired during early socialization and do not ignore changing in their living environment. Ronald Inglehart assumed that economic and physical security during one’s formative years has an important influence on his /her value orientation (socialization hypothesis). On the other hand, values may also adapt to changes in environment (scarcity hypothesis). People who grown up in affluent societies become more tolerant towards minorities or with respect to family norms and sexuality and are more interested and more engaged in politics. What are the long term consequences on values of decreasing affluence due to the economic crisis experienced by many European countries during last years? Do people become less tolerant and less politically engaged? What is the impact of changing in living conditions on different values like universalism, conformity, or security as distinguished by Shalom Schwartz? Does changing in living conditions impact in the same way on values’ structure distinguished by Inglehart and Schwartz? Can similarities and differences be identified?

This session welcomes contributions that try to investigate empirically the impact of changing environment conditions on values and attitudes. We particularly encourage submissions based on international comparisons, using comparative survey data such as European Values Study, World Values Survey, European Social Survey, or International Social Survey Program. Substantive contributions, approaching the impact of changing in living conditions on values as well as innovative methodological approaches, which, by instance, help disentangling age, cohort and period effects, are equally welcomed.

Paper Details

1. Trends of family attitudes and obligations in Europe
Mrs Malgorzata Mikucka (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium)
Mr Francesco Sarracino (STATEC, Luxembourg)

Technological progress, developments of welfare state, and process of individualization might have led to weakening of the importance of family, marriage, and obligations between parents and children. This study is the first one to systematically investigate the trends of family attitudes and obligations in European countries. The results, based on the European Values Survey data, show a systematic change towards less traditional attitudes. We conclude that - despite this change - family did not loose its importance, but it became more important as a source of personal accomplishment.

2. Recent evolution of gender cultures among European countries
Dr Celia Munoz-goy (University of A Coruna, Spain)

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the evolution of attitudes about gender roles. The socialization hypothesis proposed by Inglehart suggests that a transition to gender equality values should be expected among affluent societies and younger generations.
To test this hypothesis a comparison of attitudes about gender roles, concerning paid work, household care and child raising, in different European countries and their evolution will be presented at a double level –aggregate and individual-, using relevant data from the ISSP Module on Family and changing gender roles for different waves (1994, 2002, and 2012).

3. Changes in attitudes towards gender roles under the impact of partners’ status on labour market
Dr Malina Voicu (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)
Miss Andreea Constantin (University of Cologne)

Starting from the assumption that gender roles are shaped by interaction between a woman and a man living as a couple, the current analysis investigates how partners’ position on the labour market shapes their attitudes towards gender roles. We test our hypotheses using data from nine waves of British Household Survey Panel, and we focus our analysis only on people living as couples. The results show that both women and men react differently to the transition from the traditional couple (men breadwinner/ woman homemaker) to other type of couples depending on the dimension of gender roles we focus on.

4. After the Great Recession: Perception of Mutual Help among Single Europeans
Dr Anna Shirokanova (Belarus State University)

Lifelong socialization plays a greater role than primary socialization in adapting to changing sociocultural and economic environment (Rudnev 2014). As a result of expenditure cuts during recession, mutual help among people may both increase or decrease, depending on the values. This paper focuses on the link between being a single –living alone divorced/widowed/never married – and the perception of mutual help among people in the area. The sample is based on the ESS (2006, 2012). The results of multilevel regression will demonstrate whether living alone presents a risk in times of crisis as compared to other socio-demographic characteristics.

5. Parental family and cultural context as predictors of individual level of sexual liberalization in Europe
Dr Natalia Soboleva (Laboratory for Comparative Social Research Higher School of Economics)
Dr Vladimir Kozlov (Demographic Department Higher School of Economics)

In this paper we regard the impact of parental family and cultural context on individual attitudes toward sexual liberalization (abortion, divorce and homosexuality) across Europe. Research is based upon the ‘plethora of capitals’ framework (Bourdieu 1986) and modernization theory (Inglehart, Welzel 2010). Sexual liberalization is one of the crucial domains of emancipative values and freedoms (Welzel 2013). European Value Study 2008-2009 serves as dataset. According to the results, the impact of parental family is very strong and diminishes the effect of religiosity to some extent . Cultural context also largely predicts the level of sexual liberalization.