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European Values Study and World Values Survey: Exploring New Survey Findings and Addressing Methodological Challenges 1 |
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| Session Organisers | Dr Vera Lomazzi (University of Bergamo, Italy) Dr Kseniya Kizilova (Institute for Comparative Survey Research, Austria) Professor Ruud Luijkx (Tilburg University; University of Trento) |
| Time | Wednesday 19 July, 09:00 - 10:30 |
| Room | U6-06 |
The European Values Study (EVS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) are two large-scale comparative time-series survey research programs studying people’s values, norms and beliefs. Since 1981, these programmes have jointly carried out representative national surveys in over 120 countries and societies containing 92 percent of the world’s population representing an invaluable data source for a global network of scholars and international development agencies, including the World Bank, the UNDP, the WHO, regional development banks etc.
Over the years, the EVS and the WVS have proven the importance of population value study and have demonstrated that people’s beliefs play a key role in economic development, emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, rise of gender equality, and the extent to which societies have effective government.
We welcome submissions based on EVS/WVS data addressing substantive and/or methodological aspects of value research.
The recently published joint EVS-WVS dataset (2017-2022) and the EVS-WVS trend file (1981-2022) allow social and political sciences to broaden and deepen their analysis. Present session invites papers which make use of the EVS/WVS data -solely or in combination with other types of data- to address a broad scope of issues, including political culture and political attitudes, support for democracy and political participation, perceptions of gender equality and moral values, identity and trust, civil society, corruption, solidarity, and migration among the others.
We also invite papers addressing the projects’ methodological aspects, including challenges and limitations such as reliability and equivalence of employed scales and indicators, non-responses, combining self- and interviewer-administered mode and other. The panel particularly invites papers comparing findings collected via different survey methods in the same countries allowing to estimate the reliability of online surveys and discuss challenges and prospects of their combined use.
Keywords: values; EVS; WVS
Mr Simon Lütkewitte (Bielefeld University ) - Presenting Author
Until today the sphere of organised sport is still highly segregated by gender. So, sports participation might foster the development of identification processes which might increase for men the likelihood to agree with beliefs of male-dominance and discriminatory attitudes towards women (in this work summarized as “misogynistic gender ideologies”) while it could foster a rejection of misogynistic gender ideologies within women. However, concerning the relationship between sports participation and misogynistic gender ideologies, empirical research remains scarce. To fill this gap, I investigated how the participation in sports affects the degree to which men and women hold misogynistic gender ideologies. Furthermore, I analysed how gender inequalities on the country-level moderate the relationship between sports participation and the endorsement of misogynistic gender ideologies. For the analysis, I used cross-national survey data from the World Value Survey and the European Values Study, including the observations of 57 817 men and 61 080 women from 74 countries collected between 2005 and 2016 that vary in terms of gender equality, religiosity, modernisation, and economic development. My findings show that if one controls for socio-demographic factors on the individual level and for between-country differences in misogynistic gender ideologies, men who are sports club members (active and inactive members) endorse misogynistic gender ideologies to a significantly greater degree than men who are not sports club members. This finding is independent of a country’s degree of gender inequalities. Furthermore, in very gender-inegalitarian countries, women who are active sports club members tend to hold significantly less misogynistic gender ideologies than women who are not sports club members or inactive members. However, in more gender-egalitarian countries, women who are sports club members (active or inactive) do not differ substantially from non-members in the degree to which they hold misogynistic gender ideologies.
Dr Natalia Soboleva (LCSR HSE University) - Presenting Author
Dr Plamen Akaliyski (University Carlos III of Madrid)
Professor Michael Minkov (Varna University of Management)
Substantial differences in gender equality exist across the world today. Although gender equality generally increases in many countries, large behavioral differences between men and women persist. This concerns labor market, political leadership, division of household labor, etc. As values are important determinants of behavior, revealing the differences in values between men and women – ‘the gender value gap’ – can contribute to understanding differences in behavior and societal gender inequality. The study aims at identifying the patterns of gender gaps in two value dimensions – individual freedom and gender equality – and finding the mechanisms explaining these gaps. Two theoretical perspectives compete for predicting the gender value gap across societies. According to social role theory (SRT) and the institutional approach, institutions and social policies influence male and female values and consequently leading to a smaller gender value gap in wealthier countries and in countries with more gender-equal institutions. Conversely, the gender equality-personality paradox (GEPP) perspective and post-materialist theory claim that more gender-equal and wealthy countries offer individuals more freedom to express gender-specific preferences, thus decreasing the gender value gap. To test these theories, we analyze the last three waves of the World Values Survey (2005-2009, 2010-2014, 2017-2022) using multilevel regression modeling. We find that women hold more progressive values on both values. However, the tendencies differ across countries’ macro-level characteristics. In support of SRT and the institutional approach, the gender gap in gender equality is lower in wealthier and more gender-equal countries. In contrast, the gender gap in individual freedom is higher in wealthier and more gender equal countries, which supports GEPP and post-materialist theory. These results suggest that societal value change may exhibit gender specific dynamics as women could be the first to adopt more progressive values.
Dr Ivett Szalma (Centre for Social Sciences) - Presenting Author
Professor Judit Takács (Centre for Social Sciences)
Even though we can find certain forms of institutionalized same-sex partnership in many European societies, there are great differences in the degree of institutionalization of same-sex parenting. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to “open up” marriage, and many other European countries followed suit. There are countries where the institutionalization of same-sex partnerships started more than a decade ago, but no further steps were taken to reach marriage equality. Strong negative association between homophobia and institutionalization of same-sex partnerships and adoption by same-sex parents has been shown (Takács – Szalma 2011, Takács et al. 2016). Two international European surveys measure the attitudes towards same-sex parenting issues with two different variables. In the European Social Survey (ESS) there is a variable “Gay male and lesbian couples should have the same rights to adopt children as straight couples”, while in the European Values Study (EVS) there is the variable “Homosexual couples are as good parents as other couples”.
Our aim is to explore to what extent these two variables measure the same dimension of attitudes towards parenting by same-sex couples. Do the same social groups and country groups agree on the one hand that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt, and on the other that same-sex couples are just as good parents as straight couples?
The empirical base of the present research is the fifth round of the European Values Study and the ninth round of the European Social Survey (ESS); both conducted in 2018. We use multilevel regression analyses with individual- and country-level variables. Among the country level variables, we include not only the institutionalization level of same-sex partnerships, but we also focus on how long these have been available.
Dr Giulia Maria Dotti-Sani (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Dr Jessica Rosco (University of Milan)
Whether or not women should have the right to abort is a strongly divisive argument. Although pregnancy termination is legal in many countries worldwide, there is considerable variation in the circumstances under which abortion is allowed. Moreover, certain countries have highly restrictive laws on abortion, some have none, and in other countries existing laws are put into discussion.
The absence of a globally shared view on abortion rights is reflected in individual attitudes on the topic, which vary greatly both between and within countries. At the individual level, studies show that two characteristics play a decisive role in shaping attitudes towards abortion: political ideology and religiosity. Previous research has shown that, on the one hand, left-leaning individuals have more favorable attitudes toward abortion than right-leaning ones, as the former take a pro-choice stance and the latter a pro-life stance; on the other hand, non-religious subjects are more likely to accept abortion compared to highly religious individuals.
Against this background, this article contributes to the literature by testing the role of individual level religiosity and political ideology in shaping attitudes toward abortion in different contexts and, crucially, by verifying whether an interaction exists between religiosity and political ideology: in other words, what happens to attitudes towards abortion when individuals’ political views and religious moral standard are in conflict on this specific matter?
These questions are addressed using multilevel models based on the most recent wave of data from the European Values Study and the World Value Survey (2017-2022). Preliminary results indicate the existence of an interaction between religiosity and political ideolog. However, the sign of such interaction varies across countries with more or less restrictive access to abortion.
Professor Ming-Chang Tsai (Academia Sinica) - Presenting Author
Postmaterialism has long been considered as an expressive value embraced by certain cohorts who grew up in a relatively wealthy environment. This study challenges this generational replacement hypothesis and suggests that value shifts in a population which emerge in large magnitude in short time span due to outside pressing forces. By simultaneously observing the changing value trends of the US, Japan, Turkey and China over 20 years on the basis of the data of the World Values Survey, this study performs an Age-Period-Cohort analysis with the intrinsic estimates model for decomposing the otherwise knotted effects of age, period and cohort in contexts of different income level and cultural background. The results show that cohort characteristics is less obvious than the influences brought about by specific periods, when important individual backgrounds are also taken into account. Two important contributions are noted. First, more effective estimation of age, period and cohort effect is a necessity for advancing strong evidence-based arguments. Second, taking a new, different value position at a societal level can be an instant happening whose underlying logics need urgent research.