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European Values Study and World Values Survey: Substantive Findings and Methodological Challenges in value research |
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| Session Organisers | Dr Vera Lomazzi (European Values Study/ University of Bergamo) Dr Kseniya Kizilova (World Values Survey Association) Professor Ruud Luijkx (European Values Study/Tilburg University) |
| Time | Tuesday 18 July, 09:00 - 10:30 |
| Room | |
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, the OECD, 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 as well as to discuss the challenges and
Keywords: values, WVS, EVS
Mr Devendra Poola (Centre for Economic and Social Studies) - Presenting Author
Dr Prashant Kumar Choudhary (Manipal Academy of Higher Education)
Political ideology and political beliefs are strongly related to each other. Using the World Values Survey (2017-2022), we analyzed 57 countries, categorized by their democratic level according to V-Dem. We find that since 1981-84, there has been an increment in the percentage of individuals (by more than 10%) who can be termed ‘radical’. Applying the Probit model, which we have used for the four groups of countries, this paper finds that individuals from any categorized groups have pro-democracy beliefs irrespective of their ideology. i.e., their political ideology and positioning in the country they belong to do not impact their political beliefs much. For example, individuals with reformist or conservative inclinations (compared to radical ones) prefer a democratic system over a theocratic state or army rule. They also reject political violence, have high confidence in elections and their government, and show greater respect (compared to radical ones) for human rights. The study posits that democratic political ideals have deepened among individuals regardless of their country’s democratic status. It can be argued that it is due to political awareness and exposure gained through media that individuals value pro-democratic beliefs more than ever.
Dr Aida Savicka (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute) - Presenting Author
Perceived control over one’s life reflects an individual’s subjective belief in their ability to influence the circumstances and events shaping their experiences, enabling them to achieve desired outcomes. Extensive research highlights that higher levels of perceived control not only enhance personal quality of life but also promote broader societal benefits, including economic efficiency, social inclusion, and civic engagement. Furthermore, perceived control plays a pivotal role in fostering resilience during crises. At the individual level, it supports the development of effective coping strategies, reduces psychological distress, encourages proactive problem-solving, and contributes to better health outcomes. At the societal level, it reinforces community cohesion, facilitates mutual support, and promotes collaborative problem-solving, thereby enabling more coordinated responses to collective challenges.
Strategies that sustain or enhance perceived control can thus serve as critical buffers against the adverse impacts of crises. However, the social conditions that foster perceived control, as well as its broader implications for society, remain underexplored. To address this gap, the present research would contribute to the conference by investigating trends in perceived control across selected European countries, drawing on longitudinal data from the European Values Survey (1999–2017). Using a cohort replacement framework, the study reveals that while long-term trends point toward increasing perceived control across Western, Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe, regional variations persist. Additionally, the findings highlight significant inter-cohort differences in perceived control across all regions. However, a multilevel age-period-cohort analysis suggests that while generational replacement contributes to rising levels of perceived control, the primary driver is a profound cultural transformation that transcends generational boundaries.
Dr Francesco Molteni (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Many, if not all, sociological theories are theories of change, and secularization theory is no exception. While the general idea that modernization fosters secularization is widely accepted, empirical tests of this theory face challenge due to the complexity of the concepts and the difficulty of modelling longitudinal change. Researchers have primarily employed three strategies to address these challenges: cross-sectional models, "panels of countries," and decomposition techniques. Among these, decomposition techniques – though rarely applied in the field – are particularly advantageous. They allow for capturing both enduring country-specific traits and their changes over time while simultaneously controlling for individual factors.
The underlying—and often implicit—assumption behind these models is that societal trends directly influence individuals’ values and behaviours over time. However, this perspective neglects the influence of formative years, during which cultural patterns such as religiosity are predominantly shaped and remain resistant to later changes. As a result, many models fail to detect significant within-country, between-periods changes in values and attitudes over time.
To address this limitation, an updated model is proposed, nesting individuals within country-specific socialization cohorts, nested within countries. This refinement emphasizes the impact of contextual characteristics during formative years, enabling a more nuanced analysis of socialization contexts and their evolution.
By leveraging on the combined EVS and WVS dataset, applications of this model will be presented to explore the effects of Human Development Index (HDI) and tertiary education on changes in public service attendance worldwide. Additionally, its potential for studying other social phenomena will be discussed, along with its main limitations, offering broader implications for sociological research.
Dr Tatiana Karabchuk (UAE University) - Presenting Author
Dr Osman Antwi Boetang (UAE University)
Public institutions are the catalyst for development and the well-being of the citizens of a state. The national confidence in state institutions depends on how they are viewed by the public as fulfilling their mandate to the benefit of the society. Technological advancements and the increasing digitalization of all spheres of society has shaped public opinion about the performance of governments and public institutions. Hence, this research highlights the relationship between digitalization of society and confidence in national institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). Using the biggest individual cross-national survey data from the World Value Survey, waves of 2005-2022, the research results demonstrates that there is a positive correlation between digitalization at the country level, Internet usage for news and social media usage at the individual level and confidence in the courts, mass media and other national institutions
Miss saba Aslam Khan (Vrije University Amsterdam) - Presenting Author
Mrs Ineke Nagel (Vrije University Amsterdam)
Mr Harry Ganzeboom (Vrije University Amsterdam)
The gender role revolution is often conceptualized as significant transformations within the gender system. Prior literature suggests that there is an increase toward egalitarian values about gender roles but that this upward trend has stalled among recent generations. This claim is based upon limited evidence from developed Western societies. It is questionable whether this claim can be upheld globally. The literature suggests that in Islamic countries, including the ones that are developed, the trend towards egalitarian gender values is less steep. The aim of this paper is to trace whether the developments in gender role ideology are happening similarly across Western and Islamic societies. Particularly, we are interested to know to what extent the developments have levelled off in both types of countries and, if so, from which generations or period the trend reversal or platueauing has occurred. We also examine the effects of various cultural and structural predictors highlighted in two important studies by Gerling et al. (2019) and Cotter et al. (2011), including changes in religiosity and education, to understand the possible stall and uneven pace of change in gender role ideologies. Our analysis is based on repeated cross-sectional data sets of WVS and EVS [IVS] over the period of the past two decades (2005-2022, five waves). We find a number of variations across western and Islamic countries. The findings show that on average, an upward linear trend over cohorts is found in both Islamic and western societies, which starts leveling off in most recent cohorts. However, the developments in trends towards egalitarian gender ideology are leveling off much steeper in Islamic societies. The cohort effect on gender role ideologies is strongly mediated by religiosity and education, but the effect of religiosity is much stronger in Islamic societies.
Dr Pablo Christmann (GESIS) - Presenting Author
Professor Alexandru Cernat (University of Manchester)
Professor Tobias Gummer (GESIS)
Professor Joeseph Sakshaug (Institute for Employment Research)
Transitioning from interviewer-administered to self-completion or mixed-mode data collection can reduce costs and sustain response rates but risks compromising data quality and cross-national comparability due to measurement mode effects. These effects may arise because interviewer- and self-administered modes differ in measurement properties, with evidence showing that respondents often provide different answers to the same questions depending on the mode. Variations in response styles also play a role: interviewer-administered (aural) modes tend to be more prone to recency effects, while self-completion (visual) modes exhibit primacy effects and greater susceptibility to satisficing behaviours, such as straightlining. Researchers are therefore encouraged to keep self-completion questionnaires short to maintain respondent engagement. However, adapting long interviewer-administered questionnaires into shorter self-completion versions can be challenging. Removing questions may undermine research goals, while using matrix sampling retains all questions but may diminish measurement comparability with the full-length version.
We address these challenges by analysing a large-scale cross-national mode design experiment conducted in five countries as part of the European Values Study (EVS) in 2017/2018. Randomly selected general population samples in each country were assigned to one of three designs: face-to-face, mixed-mode paper/web with a full-length questionnaire, or mixed-mode paper/web with a shorter matrix-sampled questionnaire. Our analysis included 118 attitudinal items and 21 scales, assessing key data quality indicators (e.g., item nonresponse, response styles) and substantive estimates (e.g., mean comparisons, standard deviations, Cohen’s d). Additionally, we tested measurement equivalence for the 21 scales within and across countries using 504 equivalence testing models. These findings provide guidance to survey practitioners and cross-national research programmes on the implications of transitioning from interviewer-administered to self-administered mixed-mode designs.
Dr Melike Sarac (Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies) - Presenting Author
Professor Ismet Koc (Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies)
It is well known that the quality of survey statistics can suffer from overreporting or underreporting, which leads to measurement error. This problem may be more pronounced in the case of questions, which is why the use of multiple survey modes is preferred in some surveys. The use of mixed mode surveys has been on the rise in the twenty-first century with the main concerns of high response and reducing cost. The study aims to examine the relationship between mode of administration (e.g., Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) and Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI)) and measuring attitudes towards ethical norms, which are highly concentrated in the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Study (EVS). The data provides detailed information about social values and stereotypes, happiness and well-being, social trust and organizational membership, perceptions of migration and security, religiousness, political interest, political participation, and ethical attitudes. The multiple regression results suggest that the level of reporting of ethical attitudes is significantly higher when the CAWI mode is used than when the CAPI mode is used for Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Great Britain. The analyses also controlled for respondent and country-specific characteristics. Strategies concerning survey design will be discussed on the basis of the study findings. We encourage adding web-based parts to social surveys, particularly sensitive questions, to collect more accurate data. Similarly, EVS (2022) highlighted the more sustainable and timely data for attitudes and beliefs of European citizens thanks to the mixed-mode design approach. This study adds to our current knowledge by presenting empirical evidence of the impact of survey mode on measuring ethical attitudes.
EVS. (2022). Mixed-Mode. Mixed-Mode Implementation in the EVS. Available at https://europeanvaluesstudy.eu/methodology-data-documentation/survey-2017/methodology/mixed-mode/
Mr Ferruccio Biolcati Rinaldi (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Mr David Consolazio (University of Milan)
Mr Riccardo Ladini (University of Milan)
Mr Francesco Molteni (University of Milan)
Mr Cristiano Vezzoni (University of Milan)
The theory of secular transition proposed by David Voas constitutes a research agenda open to various developments. One of the most debated issues concerns the universality of the secular transition model, specifically whether the transition process is the same in all countries experiencing secularization dynamics, or whether there may be potential variants of a prevailing model. This possibility has been explored particularly in Eastern European countries, given the unique interplay between politics and religion in these nations from World War II to the present day.
Preliminary analyses also focus attention on Southern European countries, which could represent a specific variant of the secular transition model. In Italy, as well as in Portugal and Spain, the transition process appears to be slower compared to what has been observed in other European and Western countries. This hypothesis is being thoroughly tested. If confirmed, the possible explanatory factors for this variant will be investigated, ranging from the religious specificities of the national context to the social structures and networks that may influence the spread of secularity as an innovation.
The analyses are based on the CARPE dataset (Church Attendance and Religious change Pooled European dataset), which harmonizes variables related to religious affiliation and participation in religious services from major international longitudinal and comparative surveys (ESS, EVS, WVS, as well as Eurobarometer and ISSP). Currently, the CARPE dataset contains data for 45 countries, covering the period 1970–2016, and derives from 1,665 national surveys. This translates into a sample of approximately 1.8 million individual observations. For these analyses, the dataset will be updated to include surveys from recent years.
Dr Andrea Turković (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
While cross-national surveys like the European Values Study provide standardized measures for variables such as income or education, researchers often build on these by constructing typologies and categorizations. For values and attitudes, where standardized measures are largely absent, these typologies—typically based on intuitive or theory-driven principles—apply uniform grouping across diverse samples without testing for measurement invariance. As a result, such typologies may fail to account for the context dependency of values and attitudes.
This paper focuses on one such typology: religiosity typology, defined by denomination and religious service attendance. Using data from the fifth wave of the European Values Study (EVS-5, 2022) across 36 European countries, we examine the variance and consistency of the typology. To identify patterns and test for measurement consistency, we applied a three-step approach: (1) Latent Class Analysis (LCA) on the pooled dataset to identify a general typology, (2) country-specific LCA to explore within-country variance, and (3) multi-group LCA to assess cross-national measurement consistency and context sensitivity.
By analysing religious-historical contexts, particularly in understudied Orthodox countries, we identify where typological consistency persists and where it does not. Preliminary results reveal a consistent 3-class typology across all countries, supporting configural invariance. However, class definitions and sizes vary significantly between contexts, showing no evidence of metric or scalar invariance. This variation is particularly evident in Orthodox-majority countries, where affiliation and holy day observance dominate, compared to Catholic and secular contexts, which exhibit distinct patterns of regular and irregular attendance. These findings challenge assumptions of universal categorizations in typology building in cross-national surveys like the European Values Study. We highlight their context-sensitivity—particularly for values and attitudes—and underscore the need for more rigorous testing of invariance and robustness of such categorizations.
Professor Ming-Chang Tsai (Academia Sinica) - Presenting Author
This study examines the relationship between postmaterialist values and preferences for democratic principles, focusing on Chinese societies where democracy has been traditionally understood differently than in Western contexts. The core argument is that postmaterialist values, characterized by an emphasis on freedom and self-expression, shape policy priorities within democratic frameworks. It is hypothesized that individuals with higher postmaterialist scores will view free elections as a legitimate basis for political power, while placing less importance on other democratic traits such as equality or civil rights protections. Using data from Wave 7 of the World Values Survey, this study analyzes responses from four Chinese societies: mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The findings reveal significant variations. In mainland China, postmaterialist values show limited differentiation in respondents’ prioritization of democratic principles, because it is an authoritarian regime. In Hong Kong, however, these values strongly correlate with support for free elections and civil disobedience. In Macau, postmaterialist values are most closely associated with a preference for less state intervention in addressing social inequality. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, postmaterialist values primarily align with increased support for civil disobedience. These differences underscore the complexity of postmaterialist value shifts and their varied influence on public perceptions of government priorities across the different political contexts of the four societies.
Dr Natalia Soboleva (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Looking at gender differences in predictors of subjective well-being (SWB) can shed light to the role of gender equality across the world. Although there is a lot of research regarding the gender differences in SWB the research regarding the differences in determinants is scarce (Joshanloo 2018; Arrondo et al., 2020). Does growing gender equality mean that male and female happiness depends on the same factors? The objective of this research is to reveal gender differences in the determinants of SWB across the world. The emphasis is on comparing countries with different level of societal gender equality. Two competitive explanations could be distinguished. On one hand, higher societal gender equality leads to increasing gender equality in opportunities (Audette et al., 2018) and thus can contribute to the growing similarity of male and female determinants of subjective well-being. On the other hand, the gender equality-personality paradox perspective claims that more gender-equal countries offer their citizens more freedom to express gender-specific preferences (Falk, Hermle, 2018) and this can result in growing distinction between determinants of SWB. The joint WVS-EVS 2017-2022 data is used as a dataset. Multilevel regression analysis is the main research method. The results confirm the hypothesis that gender differences in determinants of SWB vary across countries depending on the level of societal gender equality. Generally, women are slightly happier compared to men. Regarding the factors, characteristics of education, income and labor market participation explain more SWB of men compared to women. But these effects are not consistent across the world.
Professor Yilmaz Esmer (Bahcesehir University) - Presenting Author
Ms Duygu Karadon (Freie Universität Berlin)
Until about1990s, the golden standard in survey research was face-to-face interviews. International survey projects such as the ESS, WVS or EVS steered away from telephone interviews (and with good justification) despite their significantly lower costs.
In the last couple of decades, two developments -advances in internet technology and prohibitive costs of face-to-face interviews- seem to have changed the scene. Even the most passionate defenders (which included the authors of this abstract) started to consider, albeit out of necessity, alternatives such as web surveys, internet panels and mixed-mode methodology. Today, with over 90% coverage in even less developed societies, the internet has become an attractive alternative to face-to-face surveys. Indeed, in addition to cost, they have the advantage of being much faster and much less prone to coding and interviewer errors. A heaven on earth for the survey researcher? Not quite, because the big question now was accuracy -a question that initiated sophisticated methodological research to compare different modes of data collection. Perhaps most notably, the ESS published a number of reports on the topic.
From what has been done in a limited number of societies, we know that the reliability of sampling frames, response rates, social desirability effects, and responses to sensitive questions are impacted by web-based interviews.
To the best of our knowledge, no methodological research on these concerns exists in Turkey which has a unique place on the Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural Map. Thus, we propose to compare F2F and online panel interviews with a limited sample (similar to the extent possible for both surveys) and including only sensitive questions (e.g. income, party preference, homosexuality, religiosity) from most recent WVS/EVS questionnaires. Findings are expected to shed light on important methodological questions.