Contemporary Switzerland: Revisiting the Special Case

Contemporary Switzerland Revisiting the Special Case Edited by Hanspeter Kriesi, Peter Farago, Martin Kohli and Milad ...

Author: Hanspeter Kriesi | Peter Farago | Martin Kohli | Milad Zarin-Nejadan

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Contemporary Switzerland Revisiting the Special Case

Edited by

Hanspeter Kriesi, Peter Farago, Martin Kohli and Milad Zarin-Nejadan

Contemporary Switzerland

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Contemporary Switzerland Revisiting the Special Case Edited by

Hanspeter Kriesi Peter Farago Martin Kohli and

Milad Zarin-Nejadan

Selection and editorial matter © Hanspeter Kriesi, Peter Farago, Martin Kohli and Milad Zarin-Nejadan 2005 Individual chapters © contributors 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–4798–7 ISBN-10: 1–4039–4798–8 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Contemporary Switzerland : revisiting the special case / edited by Hanspeter Kriesi . . . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–4798–8 (cloth) 1. Labor market—Switzerland. 2. Switzerland—Social conditions—1945– 3. Switzerland—Politics and government—1945– I. Kriesi, Hanspeter HN603.5.C64 2005 306′.09494—dc22 2004063296 10 14

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents

List of Figures

vii

List of Tables

ix

Notes on the Contributors

xi

Preface

xviii

Introduction

1

Part I The Swiss Way of Life 1 Relative Deprivation and Well-being: Switzerland in a Comparative Perspective Christian Suter and Katia Iglesias 2 What Pluralization of the Life Course? An Analysis of Personal Trajectories and Conjugal Interactions in Contemporary Switzerland Eric Widmer, Jean Kellerhals and René Levy 3 Facets of Emotion Regulation in Families with Adolescents: A New Research Approach Meinrad Perrez, Dörte Watzek, Gisela Michel, Dominik Schoebi, Peter Wilhelm and Yves Hänggi 4 The Impact of Social Inequalities on Personal Health Monica Budowski and Annette Scherpenzeel Part II

9

38

61

81

The Swiss Labour Market

5 Long-Term Dynamics of Skill Demand in Switzerland, 1950–2000 Stefan Sacchi, Alexander Salvisberg and Marlis Buchmann 6 Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Employees of Different Education Levels: Firm-Level Evidence for the Swiss Economy Spyros Arvanitis 7 Young Adults Entering the Workforce in Switzerland: Working Conditions and Well-Being Norbert K. Semmer, Franziska Tschan, Achim Elfering, Wolfgang Kälin and Simone Grebner v

105

135

163

vi

Contents

8 The Erosion of Regular Work: An Analysis of the Structural Changes in the Swiss and German Labour Markets Andreas Diekmann and Ben Jann

190

Part III Political Institutions 9 Internationalization and Domestic Politics: Evidence from the Swiss Case Pascal Sciarini and Sarah Nicolet 10 Reforming the Swiss Municipalities: Efficiency or Democracy? Andreas Ladner and Reto Steiner 11 The Lost Dimension of Swiss Federalism: Democracy Problems of New Regionalism in Metropolitan Areas Daniel Kübler

221 239

256

12 Sustainable Fiscal Policy in a Federal System: Switzerland as an Example Lars P. Feld and Gebhard Kirchgässner

281

References

297

Index

329

List of Figures 1.1

Necessities: percentage of persons considering the listed items ‘absolutely necessary’ for decent living 1.2 Actual standard of living: percentage of persons who can afford the listed items 1.3 Level of deprivation (mean PDI) by quintiles of equivalent income 2.1 Men’s trajectory type ‘Dominant’ 2.2 Men’s trajectory type ‘Minority’ 2.3 Women’s trajectory type ‘Homemaker’ 2.4 Women’s trajectory type ‘Full-time worker’ 2.5 Women’s trajectory type ‘Part-time worker’ 2.6 Women’s trajectory type ‘Back-to-employment’ 3.1 Estimated time-related effects on emotional state, when situational and psychological factors are controlled 3.2 Influence of different settings on well-being, deviance from mean 3.3 Functionality of interpersonal emotion regulation behaviour in different settings 4.1 General three-wave causal model of health 5.1 Observed and expected trends in the job market for farmers and salespeople 5.2 Observed and expected trends in the job market for office and administrative staff 5.3 Observed and expected trends in the job market for unskilled workers 5.4 Observed and expected trends in the job market for highly skilled workers A5.1 Advertised jobs for unskilled workers 7.1 Stressors and resources at work 7.2 Appreciation received at work 7.3 Well-being 7.4 Worries about the future 7.5 Task stressors for five professions 7.6 Social support at work for five professions 7.7 Job control for five professions 7.8 Resigned attitude towards one’s job for five professions 7.9 Positive attitude towards life for five professions 7.10 Sex differences in well-being 7.11 Sex differences in future plans vii

17 18 21 43 44 45 45 46 47 68 69 77 89 117 119 121 124 131 167 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

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List of Figures

7.12 Resigned attitude towards one’s job: language differences 7.13 Irritability: language differences 7.14 Resigned attitude towards one’s job: language differences, controlling for work characteristics 7.15 Irritability: language differences, controlling for work characteristics 7.16 Self-esteem: language differences 7.17 Change of employer and job satisfaction 7.18 Change of profession and work characteristics 7.19 Change of profession and well-being 7.20 Well-being: influences from work, private life, and personality 8.1 Regular work in Switzerland from 1991 to 2003 8.2 Regular work in Switzerland from 1970 to 2000 8.3 Age-dependent rate of regular work in Switzerland from 1970 to 2000 8.4 Regular work in Germany from 1985 to 2002 9.1 Predicted probabilities of a successful launching of a facultative referendum, as a function of the importance and internationalization of a legislative act 10.1 Triggers of reform processes according to assessments by the municipal secretaries (case studies) 10.2 Goals of the reform projects (case studies)

179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 196 198 200 203

229 249 253

List of Tables 1.1 Relative deprivation (PDI) in four European countries 1.2 Mean of individual and societal well-being and their components 1.3 Determinants of individual and societal well-being A1.1 List of variables A1.2 Factorial analysis for well-being A1.3 Determinants of individual well-being A1.4 Determinants of societal well-being 2.1 Results of cluster analysis based on responses from both partners 2.2 Conjugal conflict, conjugal quality and styles of conjugal interactions 2.3 Multinomial logistic regressions modelling the probability of exhibiting a given trajectory-type and a given style of conjugal interactions 3.1 FASEM-C information types and item types 4.1 Effects on health: standardized regression weights 4.2 Stability of the variables in the model A5.1 Overall employment and advertised jobs by industry 6.1 Percentage of firms with decreasing, unchanged or increasing shares of employees with different levels of vocational education, 1997–2000 6.2 Formal education of employees in Swiss business sector, 1999 6.3 Full model: determinants of the employment shares of highly educated, middle-educated and low-educated employees, 1999 6.4 Determinants of the employment shares of highly educated, middle-educated and low-educated employees, 1999 6.5 Determinants of the employment share of highly educated, middle-educated and low-educated employees 6.6 Survey of recent empirical literature A6.1 Composition of the data set 7.1 Project description A8.1 Distribution of employment forms in Switzerland from 1991 to 2003 A8.2 Distribution of employment forms in Switzerland from 1970 to 2000 A8.3 Distribution of employment forms in Germany from 1985 to 2002 (West German states only) ix

20 24 26 31 33 34 36 49 52

54 65 92 95 130

141 141

146 150 152 155 161 165 209 212 214

x

List of Tables

9.1 Importance of the phases of the three decision-making processes 9.2 Importance of state and non-state actors 10.1 Spread of reforms in Swiss municipalities 10.2 Explaining different reform activities through characteristics of the municipality 10.3 Initiators of reforms according to reform type 10.4 The different types of reforms and their goals 11.1 Four routes towards metropolitan governance 11.2 Institutional fragmentation of Swiss metropolitan areas (in 2000) 11.3 Communal tax rates according to types of communes 11.4 Types of metropolitan governance found in the four metropolitan areas 11.5 Predictors of service satisfaction 11.6 Predictors of loyalty towards local authorities 11.7 Predictors of satisfaction with local democracy A11.1 List of interviews (qualitative studies) A11.2 Interviews telephone survey 12.1 Quantitative impacts of the explanatory variables A12.1 Descriptive statistics of the explanatory variables A12.2 Expenditure, revenue, and deficit (per capita), 1980–1998

226 232 242 246 251 253 260 266 266 270 273 275 276 280 280 289 295 296

Notes on the Contributors Spyros Arvanitis is Senior Research Economist at the Swiss Institute for Business Cycle Research (KOF) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), where he is head of the Research Group ‘Market Dynamics and Competition’. Dr. Arvanitis holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Zurich and a doctoral degree in chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. He is a lecturer in economics at the ETHZ and has published extensively on the economics of innovation, technology diffusion, firm performance and market dynamics. Marlis Buchmann is Professor of Sociology at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Her major areas of research are sociology of the life course, social stratification and mobility, sociology of work, occupations and labour markets, and social change. She has published widely in these fields with, among others, the University of Chicago Press. Her work has also appeared in many journals, including the European Sociological Review, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Work and Occupations, Poetics, International Journal of Sociology and Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie. Monica Budowski is Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). She was formerly senior researcher at the Swiss Household Panel. Her areas of research include social policy, family and gender studies, poverty and health. She has published in various books and journals on these topics, including the Journal of Comparative Family Studies and the Swiss Journal of Sociology. Andreas Diekmann is Professor of Sociology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He recently moved to ETH-Zurich from the University of Bern. His research interests include experimental game theory, environmental sociology, demography and the labour market, and methodology. His published writings in English include ‘Cooperation in an Asymmetric Volunteer’s Dilemma Game’, International Journal of Game Theory (1993), ‘The Social Inheritance of Divorce’, American Sociological Review (1999, with H. Engelhardt), and ‘The Wealth of Nations and Environmental Concern’, Environment and Behavior (1999, with A. Franzen). More recent publications have concerned reputation and Internet auctions (with D. Wyder) and the international comparison of divorce rates (with K. Schmidheiny). At present, he is working on a project on social norms, reciprocity, and intertemporal choice. xi

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Achim Elfering received a PhD in Psychology from the University of Frankfurt, Germany in 1997. Since 1997 he has been a lecturer in Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research interests are concerned with stress and health at work, notably low back pain, and job satisfaction. Peter Farago completed his studies in Sociology and Political Science at the University of Zurich with a dissertation on neo-corporatism in Switzerland (1986), since when he has been conducting empirical social research. His main focus is on programme and policy evaluation in the fields of public administration, social policy, housing, and transportation. From 1996 to 2003 he was the director of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Priority Programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’. Lars P. Feld is Full Professor of Economics, particularly Public Finance, at the Philipps-University of Marburg, a member of the Council of Scientific Advisors to the German Federal Ministery of Finance, and a member of the CESifo Research Networks. His research interests include public finance, in particular fiscal federalism and fiscal policy in open economies, new institutional economics and public choice; fiscal psychology, in particular tax evasion and tax morals. He has published numerous articles, including in the Journal of Public Economics, Public Choice, Kyklos, Regional Science, Urban Economics and the European Journal of Political Economy. Simone Grebner received a PhD in Psychology from the University of Bern, Switzerland in 2001. Since 1995 she has been a research and teaching assistant for Work and Organizational Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Switzerland. Her research interests include applied stress research, with a special emphasis on physiological measures. Yves Hänggi works as an assistant to the Chair of Clinical Psychology (Professor M. Perrez) at the University of Fribourg. His research interests include web-based prevention, in particularly a web-based training for parents in reducing stress (www.elterntraining.ch), studies concerning the method of internet surveys, and the evolutionary psychology of coping behaviour. Katia Iglesias is a researcher at the Sociological Department of the University of Neuchâtel. Her areas of research include studies on social indicators, well-being and quantitative methods. Ben Jann is a graduate research assistant at the Department of Sociology of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and a PhD candidate at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His main areas of research are


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the labour market and inequality, environmental sociology, social research methods, and statistics. Recent publications have included ‘Old-Boy Network, Military Service and Professional Success in Civilian Life in Switzerland’ (Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 2003) and Einführung in die Statistik (2002). Wolfgang Kälin received a PhD in Psychology from the University of Bern, Switzerland in 2004. Since 1996 he has been a research and teaching assistant for Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research interests are on coping, stress and well-being. Jean Kellerhals is Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Geneva. He has contributed to various dimensions of sociological family research, including conjugal and family functioning, educational strategies within the family, kinship solidarity and distributive justice in small groups. Gebhard Kirchgässner is Professor of Economics and Econometrics at the University of St Gallen and Director of the Swiss Institute of International Economics and Applied Economic Research at the University of St Gallen. He currently serves as president of the Economic Advisory Board of the Swiss government. He has received several fellowships and academic honours: he is a research fellow in the CESifo Network, a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists, and of Leopoldina, Section Economics and Empirical Social Sciences. Since 2003, he has served as the president of the European Public Choice Society. His research areas include public choice, environmental and energy economics, applied econometrics, and the methodological foundations of the social sciences. Martin Kohli is Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute, Florence (on leave from the Free University of Berlin). He is a member of both the Berlin–Brandenburg and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and from 1997 to 1999 was President of the European Sociological Association (ESA). He has published extensively on the sociology of the life course, generations and aging, on family, labour markets and social policy, and, more recently, also on the emergence of a European society. Hanspeter Kriesi is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science of the University of Zurich. His current research interests include the study of social movements, political parties and interest groups, the formation of individual political opinions in political campaigns, and direct democratic procedures. He is the author of several books on these and related topics and has widely published in various journals. He has served as the President of the committee of experts of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Priority Programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’ (1996–2003).

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Daniel Kübler is assistant professor at the Institute for Political Science of the University of Zurich. His areas of research include Swiss politics, comparative urban and local government and governance, public policy analysis and evaluation. He is author of several books and has published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of European Public Policy, Addiction, Governance, the Policy Studies Journal and the Swiss Political Science Review. Andreas Ladner is an Assistant Professor at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern. His areas of research include political parties, municipalities and institutional change. He has conducted several major research projects of the Swiss National Science Foundation and authored books and articles on these topics. He has published articles in leading journals, including West European Politics, Electoral Studies and Party Politics. He regularly comments on Swiss politics in the media. René Levy is Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Lausanne. He is the director of the Center for Life course and lifestyle studies (Pavie). He has revisited various aspects of life in other research areas, especially stratification, mobility, and family dynamics, in the light of the life course. The relationship between institutional structuration and life course trajectories has also been one of his major research interests. Gisela Michel is a Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern and former research assistant to the Chair of Clinical Psychology at the University of Fribourg. Her areas of research include the subjective experience somatic states, epidemiology of childhood cancer, experience sampling methods and multilevel analysis. She was in receipt of a PhD grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study at the New York University, and she achieved her PhD studies in the context of the programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’. Sarah Nicolet is a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, and also a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation focuses on the formation of opinion in European elections. She has published articles on internationalization and Swiss politics in the Journal of European Public Policy, the Swiss Political Science Review, and West European Politics. Meinrad Perrez is Professor for Clinical Psychology and the head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research topics concern stress, coping and social regulation of emotions in the context of health, prevention, and family psychology. One particular interest focuses on the development of new assessment tools using


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computer-aided self-monitoring procedures. He is co-editor of different psychological journals and the author of several books and articles in international journals. Stefan Sacchi is Senior Researcher at the Chair of Sociology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. His research focuses upon labour markets; social stratification and mobility; political value change, and social movements. He is (co-)author of several books and journal articles on these topics in the European Sociological Review, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Éducation permanente. Alexander Salvisberg is researcher at the Department of Sociology at the University of Zurich. His main research interests are in labour markets, the sociology of culture, and social change. He is currently working on his dissertation about the shifting demand for ‘soft’ skills in the labour market. Annette Scherpenzeel is a psychologist, specializing in methodology and statistics. She works as a freelance senior researcher for the Swiss Household Panel. Her areas of research include structural equation modelling, response effects, quality of life and life satisfaction. She has published in various books and journals on these topics, such as Social Indicators Research and Sociological Methods and Research. Dominik Schoebi is Research Fellow for the Chair of Clinical Psychology at the University of Fribourg. His main research interests are in studies of interpersonal emotion regulation, conflict regulation and coping with stress in intimate relationships. He collaborated in several research projects on stress and emotion regulation in families, and he coordinates the EU project on ‘Family and Work’. He achieved his PhD studies in the context of the programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’. Pascal Sciarini is Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Institute of Public Administration (IDHEAP), Lausanne. He has published on Swiss politics, European integration, comparative political economy and opinion formation in many journals, including the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the European Journal of Political Research, and West European Politics. His most recent publications include a co-edited book on the 1999 Swiss federal elections. Norbert K. Semmer received a PhD in Psychology from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany in 1983. He has been head of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Bern, Switzerland since 1987. His research interests concern stress at work and its relationship to productivity and health; and efficient work strategies of individuals and

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groups, how they are acquired spontaneously or taught systematically, and how they relate to issues of quality, errors and safety. Reto Steiner is a Lecturer in Business administration at the Centre of Competence for Public Management of the University of Bern. He has participated in several research projects of the Swiss National Science Foundation and is an expert in intermunicipal cooperation and amalgamation of municipalities. He has published articles in the International Public Management Journal and in Public Management Review. He is currently consulting and lecturing for the Swiss federal government and various cantons and municipalities, particularly in the areas of public management, educational administration, and local governance. Christian Suter is Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Neuchâtel. His areas of research include studies on social inequality and poverty, social indicators and social reporting, health sociology, international political economy and the political sociology of Latin America. He has authored books on global debt crises, economic and political change in Latin America, social change and inequality in Switzerland and social support and health, and has published articles on these topics in Comparative Studies in Society and History, International Studies Quarterly, Social and Preventive Medicine, and in the Swiss Journal of Sociology. Franziska Tschan received a PhD from the University of Bern in 1990. She has been a Professor of the Social Psychology of Work at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland since 1995. Her major research interests are group and team performance, group processes in (medical) emergency situations, social relationships at work, and time aspects in social psychology. Dörte Watzek works as research fellow to the Chair of Clinical Psychology at the University of Fribourg. Her domain of research is work distribution in families, the assessment of housework and the consequences of workload on health and well-being. She is working towards her PhD studies in the context of the programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’. Eric Widmer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Lausanne, with an appointment at the Centre for Life Course and Lifestyle Studies (Pavie). His long-term interests include family relations, life-course research, social norms, and social networks. Peter Wilhelm is Assistant to the Chair of Clinical Psychology at the University of Fribourg. His research interests concern empathic accuracy in couples and families and cross-cultural psychology. A third area focuses on research methodology. He is collaborating on a number of different research


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projects. The author of several books and articles in international journals, he achieved his PhD studies in the context of the programme ‘Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse’. Milad Zarin-Nejadan is Professor of Economics at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He is a regular consultant to the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the OECD. His areas of teaching and research include economic policy, public economics, public finance and taxation.

Preface This volume presents a selection of the results of the largest social science research programme ever organized in Switzerland. The editors have chosen 12 from the more than one hundred projects that have been completed in the course of this programme with the intention of giving the international audience an idea of the present state not only of contemporary Switzerland, but also of the state of the art in Swiss social science. Our selection has been guided by considerations of quality, general interest and coherence. We have chosen contributions from excellent projects which concentrate on three salient aspects of contemporary Swiss society: the Swiss way of life, the labour market and political institutions. The programme included many other excellent projects, which are not documented here because they either dealt with other aspects of contemporary Switzerland, have already been documented in other publications of the programme, mainly address a specialized audience or simply because there was not enough space to accommodate them. We hope that this volume will whet the readers’ appetite to learn more about contemporary Switzerland. This publication has been made possible by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which has also financed the entire research programme. We would like to thank the contributors to this volume who have made a special effort to present their findings to an international general public. Karin Bartholomé has relentlessly cleaned and standardized the text material. Thanks also to Amanda Hamilton and her collegues at Palgrave Macmillan for their understanding and professional support. HANSPETER KRIESI PETER FARAGO MARTIN KOHLI MILAD ZARIN-NEJADAN

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Introduction Hanspeter Kriesi, Peter Farago, Martin Kohli and Milad Zarin-Nejadan

Traditionally, outside observers have tended to idealize Switzerland, to admire its standard of living and to glorify its tradition of democratic government. More recently, they have focused rather on the particular qualities of Swiss political culture, to which they have attributed the peaceful cohabitation of different cultures in one and the same country (e.g. Deutsch, 1976; Segalman, 1986; or Steinberg, 1988). Against this background, a recent assessment by The Economist that ‘the Swiss island of calm is becoming a little more like other countries’ is rather new (Beck, 2004). The Economist notes that the Swiss economy has proved as vulnerable as any other to the fluctuations of the business cycle, and is not as uniformly efficient as the Swiss themselves like to believe. If there is one persistently special feature about Switzerland, it is, as far as The Economist is concerned, its political system, its particular mix of political institutions which sets it apart from any other country in the world. For Swiss social scientists, this outside assessment comes as a pleasant confirmation of what they have observed for some time. Over the past eight years, they have been engaged in a large-scale research programme to describe and analyse the transformation of Swiss society. The programme was, ambitiously enough, called Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse (Switzerland Towards the Future). In this volume, we present the key findings of 12 of the research projects involved in the programme. They do not cover the whole range of issues addressed by the programme, but focus on three key areas – the Swiss way of life, the Swiss labour market, and the country’s political institutions. The 12 chapters give an impression both of current trends in Swiss society and of the scope of this unique programme. However, the contributions to this volume are not exclusively focused on Switzerland. All make some attempt to put their argument in a comparative perspective. 1

2

Introduction

Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse: a programme for the development of Swiss social sciences Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse was intended to promote and reinforce the social sciences in Switzerland. In order to reach this goal, it developed two main types of activities: project-based problem-oriented basic research designed to contribute to the understanding of social, cultural, political, and economic changes in Swiss society and structural measures designed to improve the training of young researchers and data infrastructures. The programme covered the social sciences in a broad sense, but its main concerns were with the disciplines of anthropology, communication science, economics, education, political science, psychology, and sociology. The programme was launched in January 1996. During the eight years of its operation it funded approximately 100 research projects in six domains that were deemed to be particularly important for the future of the country: the research should address societal problems of great public concern. Accordingly, the focus was put on the following six domains or ‘modules’: • • • •

Social inequality: Social inequalities and conflicts. Labour: The dynamics of the work environment. Individual and society: Individuality, human relations, and social structure. Science and Technology: Knowledge production, development of scientific disciplines. • Information and media society: Public sphere and communication in the media society. • Institutional change: Institutional reform at the national, cantonal and local level. The research activities were organized alongside projects which were, in turn, grouped into a limited number of more encompassing research networks. The networks were typically composed of participants from different disciplines and from various institutions. Each module included several such networks. In addition, the programme also launched a series of structural activities. These include training programmes for young researchers and measures to improve the data infrastructure for the social sciences. As far as training is concerned, three types of initiatives were launched: • Postgraduate programmes: the programme supported eight postgraduate programmes covering topics in political science, psychology, the media sciences, education, and gender studies. More than 100 students participated in these programmes. • Summer school: The programme created a summer school that offers advanced courses on methods in the social sciences with the intention of


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enhancing the methodological know-how of Swiss researchers. The courses cover both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The international faculty consists of renowned specialists. The summer school brings together some 60–80 scholars yearly. Its courses take place at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. • Scholarships: Personal scholarships have been granted to more than 30 students allowing them to round off their scientific training abroad and to complete their dissertations successfully. Support was given mainly to researchers who contributed new aspects to the topic areas studied in the framework of the programme. In the area of data infrastructure, the programme initiated and financed the construction of a Swiss Household Panel and it initiated Swiss participation in a series of international social science data collections: • The Swiss Household Panel Survey: Since 1999 the Swiss Household Panel Survey has conducted annual interviews with the members of approximately 4,000 households in all parts of Switzerland with regard to their life situations (family, work, leisure time, health, etc.). Over successive years, this survey provides basic information on life opportunities, values, and behaviour of individuals and families of varying social backgrounds and, thus, on societal change at the level of individuals and households. From the start, the panel has been designed and conducted in a way that allows for internationally comparative analyses. • Participation in the European Social Survey: The European Social Survey was initiated by National Science Foundations in more than 20 European countries. This survey examines the development and change of attitudes and values in the population on important societal issues (such as the quality of life, national identity, and political orientation). In a representative sample, 2,000 persons in each country are surveyed every second year. • Participation in the International Social Survey Programme: This is a programme of comparative research that has been underway for about 15 years. More than 30 countries participate worldwide. Each year a set of questions on a particular topic is prepared. The topics (such as social inequality, work orientations, religion, political system) are repeated at regular intervals. This programme is currently the broadest comparative database of its kind. Switzerland is now a regular member and is entitled to take part in the discussion of the topics and the design of the modules. • Participation in the Luxembourg Income Study: This is an international database for the topics of income and fortune, in which about two dozen countries participate. Statistical data prepared by the individual countries are processed according to uniform criteria, making them available for comparative analyses.

4

Introduction

In addition to making basic data available, Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse made a contribution to the dissemination of the information about social transformations in Switzerland. For this purpose, a set of indicators has been designed, which allows for the systematic description of basic societal trends and which is regularly published in a Social Report. This report presents and interprets data covering five main domains: the distribution of resources, politics, social integration, cultural diversity, and ecological integration. The data and graphics are placed on a CD included with the book. They are also available on the Internet. Both the book and the CD are published in a German and a French version. The first edition of the Social Report was published in 2000, the second in 2004 as part of a series Gesellschaft Schweiz – Analyses sociales of the Swiss publishing house Seismo (Suter et al., 2000, 2004). This series has been initiated by the programme and publishes empirically oriented analyses of major trends in contemporary Swiss society (Bühler 2001, 2002; Perrig-Chiello and Höpflinger, 2001; Luginbühl et al., 2002; Eisner et al., 2003; Stamm et al., 2003; Widmer et al., 2003). The social sciences in Switzerland have long been characterized by an uneven development between disciplines and regions. While economics and psychology developed internationally competitive departments at the major Swiss universities across the country some years ago, the core disciplines of the social sciences – sociology, political science, communications science and anthropology – had difficulties in obtaining adequate resources and becoming fully recognized, autonomous disciplines, especially in the German-speaking part of the country. Zukunft Schweiz – Demain la Suisse has contributed to the improvement of the situation in the core disciplines. The current volume documents some aspects of the state of the art of Swiss social science.

The contributions to this volume Part I of the volume deals with the Swiss way of life more generally. A good way to introduce this part is to note the relative decline of the Swiss economy, as indicated by the GNP per capita, corrected for purchasing power parity. Switzerland is still one of the richest countries in the world, and it is still richer than the average member of the EU or the OECD, but its relative advance over other OECD countries has declined considerably over the past twenty years. It was overtaken by the United States at the beginning of the 1990s and at the beginning of the present century, the Irish caught up with the Swiss and even passed them. This lacklustre performance is largely the result of lagging productivity growth and can be explained by insufficient albeit urgent structural reforms (OECD, 2004). If the Swiss are still quite privileged, their way of life is no longer significantly different from that of their European neighbours or, for that matter, of the population of any other country with a highly developed economy. We shall document the


5

‘normalization of the Swiss way of life’ in four chapters. First, Christian Suter and Katia Iglesias describe the relative deprivation and well-being of the Swiss in comparison with other Western and Central European experiences. The next three chapters show in more detail the personal trajectories in the Swiss labour market, the conjungal relationships (Eric Widmer, Jean Kellerhals and René Levy), the everyday experience of Swiss families (Meinrad Perrez et al.) and the determinants of personal health in Switzerland (Monica Budowski and Annette Scherpenzeel). The second part of the volume is concerned with the labour market. The Swiss labour market has traditionally been characterized by its flexibility – its social partnership has been exemplary, strikes very rare and unemployment virtually absent. Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, unemployment has also been rising in Switzerland and if it is still much lower than in most other European countries, it has now become a regular feature of the labour market. Two decades ago, Schmidt (1985) investigated the special circumstances that accounted for the particularly low level of unemployment in Switzerland and came to the conclusion that these circumstances were so specific that other countries could not learn from the Swiss experience in this regard. Ten years later, he came to the conclusion (Schmidt, 1995) that these very special circumstances had all disappeared, which he took to be the explanation why unemployment was now rising also in Switzerland. In this part of the volume, the contributions of Stefan Sacchi, Alexander Salvisberg and Marlis Buchmann and of Spyros Arvanitis consider the development of the demand for skills by Swiss employers and its determinants. The chapter contributed by Norbert K. Semmer and his collaborators reports on the experience of young adults entering the workforce. It shows that this experience is less stressful than generally expected and accounts for this result in terms of the peculiar features of the Swiss system of vocational training. The final chapter in this part, by Andreas Diekmann and Ben Jann, compares the normal working experience of the Swiss with the corresponding experience of the Germans and shows that in both countries, there is a tendency to replace standard employment with other forms of labour. Part III of our volume considers political institutions – that aspect of Swiss society which is still considered to be unique. At first sight, the Swiss uniqueness is confirmed: although Switzerland, as a typical case of a small, open economy, is highly integrated into the world market, it is politically a world apart. Traditionally neutral in world affairs, Switzerland joined the United Nations in 2002, but it is a non-aligned island in the midst of an ever-more encompassing European Union. Its population voted against joining the European Economic Area in 1992 and Swiss euroscepticism has been growing ever since. One of the main reasons for the Swiss refusal to join the EU is the attachment of the Swiss to their political institutions and their fear that these could lose their relevance once Switzerland became a member of the EU.

6

Introduction

However, as the four contributions to the last part of this volume show, Swiss institutions are currently changing at all levels of the federal structure, even if the majority of the Swiss are trying to stay apart. Pascal Sciarini and Sarah Nicolet show how political institutions at the national level change as a result of the Swiss embeddedness in its international environment. Andreas Ladner and Reto Steiner present the transformations of local government as a result of institutional reform. Given that local democracy has long been very highly developed, this reform is mainly focusing on improving the level of efficiency of local government. The chapter by Daniel Kübler is concerned with a new level of government – the regional government of metropolitan areas which is becoming increasingly important, although it has no place in the traditional framework of Swiss federalism. If democracy is not the problem at the local level, problems of democratic legitimacy come back with a vengeance at the level of metropolitan coordination between local authorities. Finally, given the far-reaching decentralization within the framework of Swiss federalism, institutions vary from one canton to the other to such an extent that it is possible to analyse the impact of the institutional diversity on fiscal policy in one and the same country. Lars P. Feld and Gebhard Kirchgässner do so in the final chapter of this volume, which can be construed as a defence of the efficiency and legitimacy of the specifically Swiss institutions. The upshot of the analyses in this volume is that while the Swiss are on their way to become Europeans just as their neighbours, they still live in a particular institutional context. The Swiss path to modernity is embedded in a set of institutions, which provide its citizens with a quality of life that is characterized by specific strengths, but also by certain weaknesses which the various chapters will highlight in detail.

Part I The Swiss Way of Life

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1 Relative Deprivation and Well-being: Switzerland in a Comparative Perspective Christian Suter and Katia Iglesias

Using data from a European welfare survey this contribution examines the actual Swiss standard of living, the degree and distribution of relative deprivation (the lack of socially perceived necessities) and their consequences for subjective well-being within a European context. Although Switzerland has maintained its high level of standard of living, its low level of relative deprivation and its high level of subjective well-being, the differences between Switzerland and the other European countries have become less pronounced. Despite disparities concerning the actual standard of living and a corresponding east–west gradient there is a large consensus among the examined four countries concerning the minimum standard of living regarded as absolutely necessary for a decent life. In all countries relative deprivation negatively impacts on individual well-being whereas societal well-being that concerns the broader social environments of the individuals remains largely unaffected by deprivation, income and other inequality measures.

1 Introduction The decade of the 1990s ushered in profound changes for the Swiss society and economy. The most severe economic downturn of the postwar era resulted in rising unemployment, growing numbers of welfare recipients and the working poor and also provoked general feelings of economic uncertainty, fears of social declassification and of increasing social inequalities. Accordingly, current scientific and public debates are witnessing an increasing interest in topics of social exclusion, marginalization, deprivation and precarious living conditions. The objective of this chapter is twofold: first, it examines the standard of living and the level of deprivation in Switzerland as compared to neighbouring countries; secondly, it analyses the impact of these ‘objective’ living conditions on subjective well-being. In doing so, our study contributes to three, more general theoretical and methodological debates. 9

10

Relative Deprivation and Well-being

The first of these debates centres on the issue of diversity among the countries of Europe. Switzerland, in particular, has often been characterized as a unique case, not only with regard to its political institutions (e.g. direct democracy, federalism) and its cultural diversity (several languages are spoken), but also concerning its high living standards, comparatively low unemployment and its hybrid welfare state model. There are, however, several indications that Switzerland has experienced some kind of ‘normalization’ in the past years and that it has moved towards the more standard European example as a result of the adverse developments of the 1990s. In the context of our study we ask whether or not Switzerland has maintained its distinct model of standard of living and defended its comparative advantages. More generally, we examine country-specific patterns of actual standards of living and normative assessments of minimum living standards. The second debate entails the conceptualization and measurement of poverty and social exclusion, i.e. the debate on direct and indirect indicators of poverty. There is a large consensus among contemporary poverty and inequality researchers that poverty must be conceptualized in relative terms. According to the definition of poverty established by the European Union,1 the poor are individuals, families and groups whose material, cultural and social resources are so limited as to exclude them from experiencing the minimum acceptable quality of life in the member states in which they live. This definition implies that, because the prevailing standard of living within a community must always be taken into consideration, poverty cannot be defined in absolute, unequivocal terms. More specifically, the measurement of such a minimum standard of living depends upon the personal values of the individuals in question concerning their requirements for maintaining a decent standard of living. The concept of relative deprivation employed in this study allows for the inclusion of such judgements. Two traditions are prominent within the field of poverty research. The first makes use of indirect poverty indicators which are based on the economic resources (income) available to an individual. The second defines poverty directly and focuses on outcomes such as the level of consumption or the standard of living and records the results of the behaviour of individuals after they make use of the resources available to them. The relative deprivation indicators used in this study have several conceptual advantages: They take into account personal preferences, they are suitable for international comparisons and they conceptualize poverty in relative terms, referring to national standards of living. While there is abundant research on indirect poverty measures (e.g. Atkinson et al., 1995; Atkinson, 1998), direct deprivation measures have rarely been used in comparative research. This is due mainly to the scarcity of comparative data sources. Much criticism has arisen from arguments contending that an indirect notion of poverty should not be used to measure a model which employs a direct conceptualization of poverty in terms of exclusion from the customary level

Christian Suter and Katia Iglesias

11

of consumption and the common standard of living. It is further argued that the actual living conditions of households with identical financial resources can differ markedly (Ringen, 1988: 358). Indeed, research has shown that the relationship between poverty measured indirectly as low income and measured directly as observed deprivation is rather weak. A sizeable proportion of households classified as poor because of low income do not suffer from deprivation, while some households classified above the official poverty line do experience deprivation (Townsend, 1979; Callan et al., 1993; Halleröd, 1995). This mismatch between income and deprivation measures of poverty can be explained to some extent by the temporal dimension of poverty. Research from Germany has shown that available household income can fluctuate over time so that income poverty must be regarded as a dynamic phenomenon (Leibfried et al., 1995). In many cases, shorter phases of poverty can be bridged by savings or with the aid of monetary or other support from the social environment. In contrast, deprivation is related to longer-term or structural poverty, and is likely to occur whenever individuals have to manage over a lengthier period of time on a low income. So deprivation indicators tend to measure a static situation of being ‘unable to afford things’, whereas income indicators yield a momentary picture of the financial situation. The third debate relevant to our study deals with the relationship between wealth – i.e. favourable ‘objective’ living conditions – and well-being. Are wealthier people happier and more satisfied with their lives than poor people? The relationship between income, poverty and well-being has been investigated by several cross-sectional studies (see Diener et al., 1999 for an overview). Although the effect of higher income on subjective well-being is positive, it is a surprisingly weak phenomenon. There are indications that people thrive well at the lower economic margin of society and that the effects of income increases are not always positive. Thus, several studies could not find a statistically significant relationship between income and well-being (e.g. Clark and Oswald, 1994; Cummins, 2000). This supports more general arguments on the decreasing relevance of traditional inequality and social stratification dimensions in contemporary post-industrial societies. Similarly, recent results of poverty studies suggest that subjective well-being does not increase significantly when the income of poor people is above the poverty line (Leu et al., 1997). While the relationship between income and subjective well-being is positive and strong at the national level, most studies have found a relatively weak correlation at the individual level (cf. Diener et al., 1999; Argyle, 1999). Thus, overall, wealthier societies seem much happier than poor ones, but wealthier people in the economically advanced western societies do not necessarily describe their individual lives as more satisfied than poor people. Based on a reassessment of ten recent studies, Cummins (2000) suggests a curvilinear relationship: the relationship between income and well-being should be stronger for the lowest income levels than for the middle- and

12


upper-income groups. Furthermore, the impact of income on well-being obviously differs across different domains (such as standard of living, health, housing). Finally, a recent analysis by Christoph and Noll (2003) on variation in the level of satisfaction with the financial situation exhibited in different countries shows that both income-based, indirect measures and consumption-based, direct measures affect well-being. These results suggest that the impact of economic conditions on subjective well-being is more complex and that relative deprivation measures might be an important factor in explaining subjective well-being. Against this background, this chapter examines the level and distribution of deprivation in Switzerland as compared to other European countries and investigates the relationship between deprivation and well-being. More specifically, the following three questions are addressed: 1. What perceptions are there of a minimal acceptable standard of living in Switzerland versus in other European countries and how do these perceptions contrast with the living standards actually achieved by respondents? How does the Swiss concept of the minimum standard of living differ from that of other European countries? 2. What are the levels and distributions of deprivation in the surveyed countries and how do these patterns vary between nations? 3. Does relative deprivation have an impact on subjective well-being? Is relative deprivation a better predictor of well-being than income based, indirect measures? We have selected three reference societies for our analysis of Switzerland:2 Austria, Germany and Slovenia. Austria and Germany have been chosen because they are the most similar countries to Switzerland with respect to several cultural characteristics, most notably their common language and history, but also similar patterns of consumption and lifestyles. By controlling these general cultural factors the hypothesis of Swiss exceptionalism (or normalization) can be tested more accurately. Compared to Switzerland, Slovenia represents a rather different case, although this country, for historical reasons, has a certain cultural proximity to the German-speaking region of Switzerland. Slovenia has experienced profound social transformations in the last decade (war, the break-up of the socialist society, national independence), its level of welfare is lower and the welfare state is only rudimentarily developed. The selection of Slovenia enables us to compare two transformation countries (eastern Germany and Slovenia). Furthermore, standard of living, level of deprivation and their consequences for well-being are examined against the background of a certain west–east gradient (Switzerland–Austria–western and eastern Germany–Slovenia). Thus, average income per capita at purchasing power parity in Switzerland is 10 per cent higher than in Austria, 15 per cent higher than in Germany and 40 per cent


13

higher than in Slovenia.3 There is, however, less income equality in Switzerland than in the other countries.4 Generally, we expect a west–east pattern with only gradual differences between Switzerland, Austria and Germany but substantial differences to exist between these three German-speaking countries and Slovenia. The chapter proceeds as follows: section 2 presents the concept of relative deprivation upon which our analyses are based. Subsequently, we briefly describe the database and the construction of the measure of deprivation (section 3). Having established this, we move on to a descriptive analysis of the standard of living and relative deprivation in the four countries examined (section 4). Section 5 deals with the impact of deprivation on subjective well-being and section 6 summarizes the implications and conclusions of our findings.

2 The concept of relative deprivation Whereas there is a long tradition of measuring poverty indirectly via income, in recent years there has been more interest in direct measurement. Townsend’s (1979: 413) concept of relative deprivation pioneers this ‘direct’ approach. According to his definition, people may be considered deprived if they lack the type of diet, clothing, housing, activities, facilities and environmental, educational, working and social conditions, which are customary – or at least widely encouraged and approved – in the societies to which they belong. In order to measure relative deprivation Townsend prepared a list of material and cultural indicators to determine whether individuals or households lacked certain commodities or did not participate in various common activities. A summed deprivation index was then generated by summing all the listed items deemed to be missing. Townsend’s study generated a multitude of comments, criticism and further research. One of the main criticisms directed at his approach was that, by giving them the power to select the indicators, it gave the researcher a privileged position (cf. Sen, 1981; Mack and Lansley, 1985). Another issue that has been raised is whether the lack of an indicator can be rated as a deprivation as it is conceivable that some people might choose to do without certain items. Furthermore, since different items may be assumed to hold varying degrees of importance to the welfare of a household, the omission of a weighting scheme has been criticized (Veit-Wilson, 1987). In their 1985 study, ‘Poor Britain’, Mack and Lansley extended Townsend’s approach, particularly in terms of survey technique. In an initial procedure, a random sample of individuals must first assess whether the items on a list of indicators are necessary for maintaining a decent standard of living. Then only those items which have been designated by at least 50 per cent of the respondents as ‘absolutely necessary’ are actually used. Thus, the normative decisions as to which aspects and features of daily life should be used as

14


indicators for delineating an acceptable minimum living standard should not be made by experts but, rather, ‘by reference to the views of society as a whole’ (Mack and Lansley, 1985: 42). Hence, a consensual definition of poverty is at issue here. Deprivation is defined by Mack and Lansley in terms of an enforced lack of socially perceived necessities (1985: 39). In order to distinguish voluntary renunciation on the basis of personal preferences from enforced renunciation due to scarcity of income resources, in a separate step the respondents are asked not only to state whether they possess a particular item on the list (such as a washing machine), but also, if they do not, whether this item is missing for financial or for other reasons. Only items which are missing for financial reasons are included in the summed deprivation index. Halleröd (1995) objected to this procedure by claiming that it, at best, led to a majority definition of poverty, but it did not garner a consensual definition. He developed an alternative means of measuring deprivation, termed the ‘Proportional Deprivation Index’ (PDI), which is based on the same underlying assumptions as Mack and Lansley’s approach and which still defines poverty as a ‘lack of socially perceived necessities’ but which eliminates the rather arbitrary classification of items as necessities or non-necessities. The PDI makes use of all items in the questionnaire, including those which only a minority regard as necessary. Each item is weighted depending upon the proportion of the population that regards it as absolutely necessary for the maintenance of a decent standard of living. Thus, the greater the consensus as to whether an item is absolutely necessary, the greater the weight of that item if it is missing. Since the advent of the methods described above, for the most part, deprivation indices have been used in national poverty studies. So far, only very few comparisons between countries have been performed (Halleröd, 1998; Böhnke and Delhey, 1999; Layte et al., 2000). This is due mostly to the scarcity of truly comparable data. Now, for the first time, the European Household Panel has acquired information on the living standards of respondents living within a larger framework. However, assessments by the respondents of which material goods or activities are required to satisfy the minimum standard of living in their respective countries is still lacking. The question now arises as to which deprivation index best satisfies the demands of comparative poverty research. A study by Lipsmeier (1999) showed that even complete renunciation of any form of weighting produces an index which shows such a high correlation with Mack and Lansley’s Consensual Deprivation Index (CDI) and Halleröd’s Proportional Deprivation Index (PDI) that identical results can be expected with their implementation. However, as long as living standards in the various countries still differ to a considerable extent, the use of an unweighted index makes no sense when attempting comparisons between countries. Deprivation, as indicated by the definition of poverty given by the Council of Europe, cited above, should


15

be ascertained relatively in terms of the usual standards of living in the respective nations. Since its weighting can be adjusted according to national preferences, the PDI developed by Halleröd appears to be particularly well suited for use in cross-country comparisons. A missing item will be assigned a different weight in each country depending upon the importance attached to it by the people in that country.

3 Measuring relative deprivation Our study made use of individual data collected in 1999 and 2000 in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Slovenia by means of the standardized survey tool known as the Euromodule (WZB, 2002). The Euromodule contains questions both on the minimum acceptable standard of living and also the standard of living that has actually been attained. On the basis of this information, the Proportional Deprivation Index (PDI) defined by Halleröd (1995) can be calculated. This weighted index can then be used to determine the deprivation level of the respondents’ households relative to the common standard of living in the respective country. A list of 19 indicators was used in a first step to determine what the respondents felt is needed for a decent living standard in their respective country. The exact phrasing of the questions was as follows: ‘In your opinion, what items on this list should every household in your country be able to afford? What could be dispensed with, what is desirable but not necessarily needed, and what is absolutely necessary?’ The selection of indicators was chosen based on preceding studies from Great Britain, Sweden and Germany (Gordon and Pantazis, 1997; Halleröd, 1998). In a second step, respondents were asked whether the designated items or activities on the same list of indicators were owned/performed by the respondents personally or by their household: ‘Now if you consider your own living conditions, what do you have or can you do? What don’t you have or can’t you do because you cannot afford it? What don’t you have or do for other reasons?’ A missing item was considered to be an indicator of deprivation in the sense of the definition quoted earlier only if its absence is due to insufficient financial resources. These data on living standards were summarized by the weighted index PDI.5 To render the deprivation indices comparable, the scores were then calculated as percentages of the maximum possible score in each country using a simple linear transformation of the original score. This standardization has the advantage of being neither sample nor population-dependent (Cohen et al., 1999).6 Therefore, the indices constructed in this way vary between 0 and 100. Each value can be interpreted as the percentage of deprivation experienced by a household in relation to the theoretical maximum possible value which can only be obtained only if the household suffers simultaneous deprivation of all items included in the scale.

16


4 Standard of living and relative deprivation 4.1

The perceptions of the minimum and the actual standard of living

The term standard of living is generally understood to refer to the ability of an individual, a group or a society to obtain goods and services. It thus comprises not only material components of supply but also factors such as educational opportunities, the environment, personal safety or the proportion of income which must be spent on health, recreation and social services. International comparisons often analyse variations in GDP, per capita income or other indicators such as life expectancy or access to clean water. To measure the standard of living, this study limits itself to 19 indicators which describe the level of consumption of individuals and households. To start with, we tried to establish what possessions and activities respondents assess as necessities for a decent standard of living in the respective countries. This step was necessary in order to gain some idea of the perception of the minimum acceptable standard of living in the various nations and to determine appropriate weights for those items which are missing for financial reasons. The respondents were asked to indicate which items on a list of standard of living indicators every household in their country should be able to afford, classifying items respectively as absolutely necessary, which items were desirable but not essential, and which could be dispensed with. Any mention in the following discussion of respondents’ views on minimum living standards refers exclusively to those items determined to be ‘absolutely necessary’. Figure 1.1 provides the main results, depicting the percentages of respondents who classified an item as an absolute necessity. The items are listed in order of descending degree of intrinsic necessity according to the Swiss sample. The first four items listed belong to the group of standard or basic goods: a large majority of the respondents consider a lavatory or bath in the apartment, one cooked meal per day, a washing machine and a telephone, to be necessities. It is remarkable to note that (with the exception of Switzerland), those items which more than 50 per cent of the respondents regarded as essential and which would thus, based on the majority criterion, be included in Mack and Lansley’s deprivation index, include only two further things – namely, a television and a car. Furthermore, a private pension plan was seen as a necessity by nearly 50 per cent of the respondents. There is also a large consensus regarding the last seven items. Neither a computer, nor a garden or balcony, nor a dishwasher, nor a family meal at a restaurant, new furniture or a video recorder are classed as being necessary for a decent standard of living. If the focus is now placed on the differences in assessments between countries, it is striking to observe that in Switzerland neither a television set nor a car are judged to be absolutely necessary by a majority of the


17

100.00 90.00 80.00 70.00 60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00

W

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or b

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ap ar t m ea me l p nt as er h i A ng d w m ay ee Sav ac k’ e Pr h s a in an t le iva e nu as te pe Ph al t ns on ho 50 e i E In Su lida ur on vi p o y bs te aw pe lan c fri ay r m en ript io fro on ds n m th t fo ho rd oa O n i nn ew me ne e s r ro pa on om pe ce r pe a rh m o ou nt To se h ho be C ld ab ar m le em to Te be bu Ga r rd y l e en ne v w or isio Ta n c b lo ke al th o es con To ut f y re a gu m be la ab ily f r C o le om ly to r din p re ne Dis ute pl ac r o hwa r nc e e she w or a m r no ou t f nth u Vi de rnit u ore re co rd er

0.00

Switzerland

Austria

Germany

Slovenia

Figure 1.1 Necessities: percentage of persons considering the listed items ‘absolutely necessary’ for decent living Notes: Country individual weighting (excepted for Slovenia). Source: Euromodule (1999/2000).

respondents – even though more than 80 per cent of them own these things themselves (cf. Figure 1.2). Thus, a picture is created of the Swiss as a rather modest people. On the other hand, the Swiss respondents regard a week of holiday away from home, monetary savings, a subscription to a newspaper and inviting friends for a dinner as more important than do respondents from the other countries. On the whole, Figure 1.1 shows some variations between the countries in perceptions of minimum living standards. The differences, however, are surprisingly small. Thus, contrary to our expectations Slovenia does not show a different pattern compared to Austria and Germany. Furthermore, there are no discernible differences between western and eastern Germany. The most important differences are not those between Slovenia and the three German-speaking countries, but those between Switzerland on the one hand and Germany, Austria and Slovenia on the other. In a second step, the respondents were asked to indicate in regards to the same list of items whether their household owns a particular commodity or can afford to perform a particular activity. If a negative answer was given, then respondents were also asked whether this lack was for financial or other

18


reasons. A description of the quality and cost of items was not included in the survey (e.g. small old Fiat versus new Mercedes), so it is a fairly crude indicator of living standards. In the affluent countries, a large proportion of households possess all of the items surveyed. This gives the impression of a uniform living standard. However, the households may in fact differ considerably in terms of incomes and living standards. An overview of approximate living standards can nevertheless be given on the basis of the indicators used. Figure 1.2 shows the percentages of people who reported they were able to afford each of the items surveyed. It can be noted that the first four items, which were almost unanimously classified as indispensable, are present in nearly all households. Television sets are found in more than 95 per cent of the respondents’ homes as well. This discrepancy between the low level of importance ascribed to televisions and the fact that televisions are present in practically all households has also been observed in other studies (e.g. Van den Bosch, 1998). This result leads to the assumption that the respondents distinguish between what they want for themselves and what should be included in a community’s notion of the minimum standard of living. With regard to all items, the

100.00 90.00 80.00 70.00 60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 t en

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as

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m

th

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y m ee Sav ac k’ e Pr hi s ne an at le iva nu as te pe Ph al t ns on ho 50 e i E In Su lida ur on vi pl o y bs te a p a n e c w fri ay r m en ript io fro on ds n m th t fo h rd oa O ne om in ne e ne w s r ro pa on om pe ce r pe a rh m on ou To th se ho be C ld ab ar m le em to Te be bu Ga r rd y l e en ne v w or isio Ta n c b lo ke al th o es con To ut f y re a gu m be la ab ily f r C o le om ly to r din p re ne Dis ute pl ac r o hwa r nc e e she w or a m r no ou t f nth u Vi de rnit u ore re co rd er

0.00

Switzerland

Figure 1.2 items

Austria

Germany

Slovenia

Actual standard of living: percentage of persons who can afford the listed

Notes: Country individual weighting (excepted for Slovenia). Source: Euromodule (1999/2000).


19

standard of living of the respondents is clearly highest in Switzerland and lowest in Slovenia. However, Germany and Slovenia differ only slightly. More specifically, eastern Germany and Slovenia demonstrate a practically identical pattern. This is confirmed by the percentage of respondents who reported that they could not afford the surveyed commodities (data not shown separately). Although the proportion of people who indicated that they could not afford certain items varied between countries, a clear pattern is discernible with regard to the items that are lacking. The households were mainly unable to afford commodities and activities which required a permanent surplus income, such as a private pension plan or the ability to save money. Items regarded as luxury goods – such as computers, dishwashers or new furniture – were also more frequently absent. In addition, in such cases, there is often insufficient money for taking holidays, entertaining friends or eating out with the family. When all of these items are considered, the west–east order of national rankings is again noticeable: Switzerland, Austria, western Germany, eastern Germany and Slovenia. 4.2

Relative deprivation

The information obtained for individual indicators of living standards was used to calculate our measure of relative deprivation, i.e. the Proportional Deprivation Index (PDI). We begin our discussion by examining the proportion of respondents affected by deprivation and mean deprivation value. As described in section 3 above, the deprivation index varies between 0 (none of the 19 standard of living items are lacking for financial reasons) and 100 (all of the 19 standard of living items are lacking for financial reasons). Comparing the degree of deprivation in the four countries seems to confirm our expectation that deprivation would be lower in the more affluent countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Germany. As demonstrated by Table 1.1, the ratio of people being affected by deprivation is lowest in Switzerland (31 per cent), followed by Austria (39 per cent), western Germany (40 per cent) and Slovenia (52 per cent). In eastern Germany, however, 55 per cent of the population is suffering from deprivation – even more than in Slovenia. Thus, Germany still seems to be divided in some regards. These observations are mirrored in the mean deprivation values. Again, Switzerland demonstrates by far the lowest average deprivation value (3.6), followed by Austria (4.5). Surprisingly, and contrary to our expectations, the mean deprivation values of Germany and Slovenia are almost identical (6.1 and 6.5). The highest deprivation values are reported by the respondents in eastern Germany (7.9). The comparatively low mean values of deprivation do not tell us, however, how deprivation is distributed across the population. Is deprivation concentrated within a few social groups – or is it more equally distributed over a larger proportion of the population? In order to answer this question we have calculated the deprivation index values for each deprivation decile. In all

20


Table 1.1

Relative deprivation (PDI) in four European countries Switzerland

Austria

Germany

West Germany

East Germany

Slovenia

Proportion of the population affected by deprivation (%) Overall mean of deprivation (index values) Mean deprivation of the 9th deprivation decile (index values) Mean deprivation of the 10th deprivation decile (index values)

30.8

39.0

41.7

39.9

55.2

51.5

3.6

4.5

6.1

5.7

7.9

6.5

9.3

10.7

16.2

16.1

16.4

15.2

22.9

24.6

30.4

30.7

29.5

32.1

N

1570

502

2413

1941

472

1012

Notes: ‘PDI’ is the Proportional Deprivation Index, Minimum (no deprivation) = 0, Maximum = 100. Source: Euromodule 1999/2000.

countries there is a gap between the ninth and the tenth deprivation deciles. Deprivation, therefore, is heavily concentrated. Regarding the level of deprivation in the most affected population groups, the exceptional status of Switzerland can again be demonstrated: the mean deprivation of the most highly deprived decile is 23 in Switzerland, but 25 in Austria, 30 in Germany and 36 in Slovenia. The next factor to be examined is the relationship between equivalent household income7 and level of deprivation. Figure 1.3 indicates the mean PDI value attained in each income quintile. It comes as no surprise that the average deprivation in all countries decreases with increasing income. In general, country differences are more pronounced when considering the lower income quintiles. Thus, in Germany and Slovenia the level of deprivation in the lowest income quintile is substantially higher than that observed in Switzerland (17 and 16 versus 8). Compared to the other countries, the Swiss deprivation pattern is less skewed. The relationship between income and deprivation is a highly contentious issue in poverty research. Townsend (1979) postulated that poverty starts at the point at which people become disproportionately excluded from social participation as their income decreases. According to this concept, the poverty line is drawn at the position where a threshold or break in the curve indicates that deprivation is increasing disproportionately. However, no such threshold can be observed in Switzerland. The deprivation rates in this country rise


21

20.00 18.00 16.00 14.00 12.00 10.00 8.00 6.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 1st quintile

2nd quintile Switzerland

Figure 1.3

3rd quintile Austria

4th quintile Germany

5th quintile Slovenia

Level of deprivation (mean PDI) by quintiles of equivalent income

Notes: Country individual weighting (excepted for Slovenia). Source: Euromodule 1999/2000.

relatively continuously with declining incomes. In the other three countries the proportion of people suffering from deprivation jumps between the first and second income quintiles (Germany and Slovenia) and between the second and third income quintiles (Austria). In a comparative analysis of the relationship between income and deprivation in Sweden and Great Britain, Halleröd (1998: 299) noted that the overall level of deprivation decreased considerably when the unemployed were excluded from the sample. In these circumstances, the differences between the countries also disappeared. From this he concludes that deprivation is a dilemma particularly for the unemployed. However, this result could not be reproduced with our data. Corresponding comparisons of the overall sample and the sample excluding unemployed persons yielded practically identical deprivation values by income deciles for all countries. Therefore, in the examined countries, at the individual level additional factors must be considered in addition to unemployment. In a separate analysis we estimated the determinants of relative deprivation by computing multivariate logistic regression models.8 In addition to income and employment status we included other factors that are known to be relevant for poverty and deprivation (level of education, age, gender and as well as aspects of life-course transitions). In all four countries the classical inequality dimensions such as low income and low education

22


turned out to be significant determinants of deprivation. In Switzerland, Germany and Slovenia a precarious employment situation (long-term unemployment) sickness, and disability are further important components. In Switzerland, the probability of being severely deprived is five times greater for those who are not employed due to illness and disability than for those who have been regularly employed. This finding supports the structuralist argument of the classical stratification perspective that social class and employment status have persisted as powerful predictors of poverty and living conditions. Nevertheless, aspects of lifestyles and life courses, as proposed by the individualization thesis, are relevant, too. Thus, separation and divorce is a predictor of (high) deprivation in Switzerland. Age, relevant in all countries but Austria, shows contradictory relationships: young people (under 35 years) show higher levels of deprivation than the reference group of the 45 to 54 year olds in Germany, but lower levels in Slovenia. In Switzerland, the midlife cohort (35–44 years) is affected by the highest deprivation values.

5 The consequences of relative deprivation for well-being As demonstrated in the previous sections, there are people and households in Switzerland and its neighbouring countries who fall below the generally recognized minimum standard of living of their respective societies. But what are the consequences of this situation? Does relative deprivation really matter? Since the 1980s, the relevance of inequality and stratification in post-industrial societies has been highly debated. Thus, it is argued that the traditional dimensions of inequality – i.e. indirect, income-based indicators – have largely lost their explanatory power due to the ‘elevator effect’ of generally upward social mobility present during the postwar period and as result of the processes of individualization and pluralization (e.g. Beck, 1986). In the context of our analysis the questions arises as to whether this weakening of social stratification measures applies to direct consumption based measures as well. We will address the question of the significance of direct poverty indicators by examining the effects of relative deprivation on subjective well-being. More specifically, it is hypothesized that the relative impact of deprivation is one of the most important explanatory factors negatively affecting well-being. 5.1

Measuring well-being

The concept of well-being is complex and contains many aspects. Thus, subjective well-being is generally measured by several specific questions concerning their level of satisfaction with different aspects of life. Our Euromodule data contain nine such questions dealing with the contentment of respondents with several areas of life. As in other surveys (e.g. the European Household Panel, the Swiss Household Panel) an 11-point scale was used


23

(0 = completely dissatisfied to 10 = completely satisfied) to explore the following dimensions of well-being: (1) satisfaction with one’s apartment, (2) satisfaction with one’s current job,9 (3) satisfaction with one’s standard of living, (4) satisfaction with one’s household income, (5) satisfaction with one’s health, (6) satisfaction with one’s education, (7) satisfaction with one’s neighbourhood, (8) satisfaction with public safety and (9) satisfaction with the environmental situation. One of the main issues that arises in relation to these questions is whether each of these nine different aspects of well-being must be analysed separately or whether a general index should be constructed. We decided to create a general measure. But which dimensions of well-being should be taken into account? We answered this question by conducting a factorial analysis for each country to see if there is a common, latent structure underlying the different aspects of satisfaction. Our empirical analysis revealed two common factors for all of the four countries: the first is composed of satisfaction with one’s standard of living, one’s household income, one’s health and education, and the second refers to satisfaction with public safety and with the environmental situation.10 The first factor can be seen as a dimension of well-being which directly touches the subjects on an individual level and on which they can have an influence. We call this dimension individual well-being. The second factor can be seen as a dimension of well-being that concerns the broader social contexts and environments of the individuals. In contrast to the first factor it is more difficult for the subjects to directly influence this second dimension of well-being. We call this second dimension societal well-being.11 5.2

Individual and societal well-being and their determinants

In a first step we examine the overall level of well-being among the four countries. As already mentioned, most empirical studies find a strong correlation between subjective well-being and income at the collective level of nations (cf. Christoph and Noll, 2003 for the European countries). We therefore expect the highest level of well-being to be observed in Switzerland and the lowest in Slovenia. Considering our empirical results on standard of living and deprivation, we expect to see an west–east gap – that is, higher degrees of subjective well-being for Switzerland, Austria and western Germany as compared to eastern Germany and Slovenia. The overall mean values of individual and societal well-being and the mean values of each component are listed in Table 1.2. As expected, Switzerland shows the highest values of well-being for both dimensions as well as for all components. Regarding individual well-being there is a pronounced west–east gradient. Mean scores vary between 6.5 (Slovenia) and 7.9 (Switzerland). Empirical evidence for societal well-being, however, is quite different. There is no west–east gap but, instead, two rather homogenous

24


Table 1.2

Mean of individual and societal well-being and their components Switzerland Austria Germany West East Slovenia Germany Germany

Individual well-being Standard of living Household income Health Education

7.91 8.32 7.48 8.06 7.76

7.56 7.89 7.21 7.74 7.39

7.16 7.44 6.71 7.31 7.20

7.25 7.56 6.89 7.36 7.16

6.82 6.96 6.01 7.12 7.38

6.47 6.80 5.88 6.71 6.58

Societal well-being Public safety Environmental situation

7.23 7.68 6.79

7.04 7.38 6.73

6.13 6.17 6.10

6.29 6.39 6.19

5.50 5.25 5.73

6.23 6.32 6.18

N valid (listwise) n (unweighted)

1000 1570

486 502

2333 2413

1862 1941

470 472

916 1012

Notes: ‘Individual Well-being’: weighted mean of satisfaction with standard of living, household income, health and education. ‘Societal Well-being’: weighted mean of satisfaction with public safety and environmental situation. Minimum (completely dissatisfied) = 0, Maximum (completely satisfied) = 10. Source: Euromodule 1999/2000.

groups: index values for Switzerland and Austria are slightly over 7, and for Germany and Slovenia slightly over 6. A closer inspection of the German pattern reveals again that this country is deeply divided, with respondents in eastern Germany suffering from a lower level of societal well-being (index value of 5.5). For all countries, scores for individual well-being are higher than those for societal well-being. By far the greatest differences between the two dimensions of well-being can be found in Switzerland and eastern Germany. Obviously, the respondents are much more critical in regards to the situation of their society and their social environment than to their own personal situation. This can be explained by a stronger individual responsibility of respondents for their personal situation. In individualized societies people are, in some respects, forced to be happy because they feel fully responsible for their own life and would otherwise be fully responsible for their unhappiness. In our final analysis we will examine the relationship between relative deprivation and the two dimensions of well-being in each of the four countries (that is, at the individual level). We started by computing simple linear regression models for estimating the effects of relative deprivation on individual and societal well-being. In a second step, we added to our first straightforward models the factors that are known from earlier studies to determine well-being (cf. Diener et al., 1999 for an overview on the state of the art). Apart from socio-demographic variables (gender, age, marital status, household composition) we took into account income (i.e. the indirect


25

measures of poverty) and the other traditional inequality measures (social class, employment status, education) as well as self-reported health, suffering from anxiety, intensity of perceived social conflicts in the country, incidents of crime, and membership of an association.12 The results are summarized in Table 1.3.13 Due to limited space available we will confine our discussion to the two most important findings. The first result shows that the Proportional Deprivation Index is a powerful determinant of individual well-being. It explains between 9 per cent (Austria) and 21 per cent (Slovenia) of the variance between the four countries. When compared to a model which includes relative deprivation as well as all of the other variables, the model using only the Proportional Deprivation Index enables us to explain almost half of the variance of the full model (total explained variance fluctuates between 29 per cent for Austria and 41 per cent for Slovenia). In Switzerland and Germany, high levels of deprivation reduce individual well-being by 1 point, in Austria they do so by 0.8 points and in Slovenia by 1.3 points (multivariate model) on the 11-point scale. The traditional dimensions of inequality – i.e. indirect income-based indicators, employment status, education, social class – also have an impact on individual well-being. These determinants, however, are less powerful (measured by the explained variance) than the consumption-based measure of relative deprivation. Our analysis also confirms the effects of other known factors – like the positive influence of good health or the negative impact of anxiety and crime. Interestingly, there are only minor differences between the four countries (this also holds true for western and eastern Germany), suggesting that the underlying mechanisms are similar in all countries despite the different levels of relative deprivation and well-being. Our second finding shows that the relationship between relative deprivation and societal well-being is rather different. As demonstrated by Table 1.3, relative deprivation is rather weakly correlated to societal wellbeing. Depending upon the country, relative deprivation only explains between 0.2 per cent and 1 per cent of the variance. The most important determinants of societal well-being are the intensity of perceived social conflicts in the country, the level of anxiety experienced and the incidence of crime (which is rather implicit since one of the two components of societal well-being is public safety). Compared to individual well-being the explanatory power of the whole model for societal well-being is rather weak (explained variance varies between 6 per cent for Slovenia and 18 per cent for Austria).

6 Concluding remarks The goal of this chapter has been to examine the actual Swiss standard of living, the degree and distribution of relative deprivation and their consequences for subjective well-being within a European context. Our comparison points

26

Table 1.3

Determinants of individual and societal well-being Individual well-being Switzerland

multivariate model

bivariate model

b Deprivation Not deprived Somewhat deprived Highly deprived n (unweighted) F sig weight Deprivation Not deprived Somewhat deprived Highly deprived n (unweighted) F sig weight

t

not inc. −0.51*** −5.62

Austria b

t

Societal Well-being

Germany b

t

Slovenia b

t

not inc. not inc. not inc. −0.61*** −4.35 −0.86*** −12.68 −0.96*** −9.51

Switzerland b

not inc. n.s.

−1.64*** −12.55 −1.44*** −6.67 −1.96*** −18.27 −2.53*** −15.26 −0.32* 1570 85.13 0,000 yes

502 26.76 0,000 yes

2413 205.57 0,000 yes

not inc. −0.24** −2.74

not inc. not inc. −0.41** −3.21 −0.30*** −4.69

t

1012 131.31 0,000 no

1570 2.27 0,104 yes

not inc. −0.39*** −4.14

not inc. n.s.

Austria b

not inc. n.s. −2.04 −0.60*

n.s.

t

Germany b

t

Slovenia b

not inc. not inc. −0.36*** −4.63 n.s. −2.65 −0.25*

−2.06 −0.43*

502 3.68 0.026 yes

2413 11.29 0,000 yes

1012 2.57 0.077 no

not inc. n.s.

not inc. not inc. −0.15* −2.05 n.s.

−1.00*** −7.75

−0.76*** −3.75 −0.99*** −9.51

−1.36*** −8.40

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

1570 32.09 0,000 yes

502 16.7 0,000 yes

1012 51.5 0,000 no

1570 20.5 0,000 yes

502 18.94 0,000 yes

2413 38.36 0,000 yes

1012 16.56 0,000 no

2413 68.24 0,000 yes

t

−2.19

n.s.

Percent of explained variance 2 ): (Radjusted model with only 14.2 deprivation as explicative variable model with 5.6 only income as explicative variable 30.2 model with deprivation and other explicative variables(a)

9.4

14.9

21.1

0.2

9.5

11.0

11.2

0.0

29.2

36.2

41.2

10.3

1.1

n.s.

0.0

18.4

n.s.

0.9

0.3

0.7

0.0

10.3

6.4

n.s.

Notes: Significant level: *0.05, **0.01, ***0.001; n.s. = not significant; not inc. = not included (saturation of regression model) multiple linear regression: b non-standardized regression coefficient, country individual weighting. (a) explicative variables: Gender, Age, Educational degree, Marital status, Social class, Employment status, Household’s financial situation compared to 1 year ago, Household income, Living with partner, Good Health, Crime incidents, Membership of an association, Intensity of conflicts in the country, Suffering from anxiety, and Household composition; for details see additional Tables A.3 and A.4 at the website of the Institut de Sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel. Source: Euromodule 1999/2000.

27

28


to the following implications relevant for the three theoretical and empirical debates mentioned in the beginning of this chapter: (1) Similarities and differences: The similarities and differences between the four countries correspond only partly to our expectations. Three results are of special importance: First, as expected there is a west–east gradient in the level of standard of living, deprivation and subjective well-being. The pattern of Switzerland and Austria are quite similar, but we found substantial differences between these two countries and Germany and Slovenia. Notwithstanding the deep and prolonged economic stagnation during the 1990s, Switzerland has maintained its high level of standard of living, its low level of relative deprivation (particularly regarding the lowest income groups) and its high level of subjective well-being. The characteristics of the Swiss pattern of standard of living are a combination of modest expectations concerning the minimum acceptable standard of living and a high level of actual standard of living. However, Swiss modesty is not necessarily an expression of traditional, conservative attitudes and values (e.g. diligence, modesty, thrift). The comparatively low proportion of Swiss respondents who consider having a car as necessary can be also explained by the high quality of the public transport system or by post-materialistic values. Secondly, despite their structural differences (e.g. different levels of GNP per capita, cultural and political differences), standard of living, deprivation and subjective well-being are rather similar in Germany and Slovenia. This can be partly explained by the differences between eastern and western Germany: standard of living and subjective well-being are substantially lower in eastern Germany than in Slovenia. In a way, the pattern observed in eastern Germany represents the opposite of that observed in Switzerland: high expectation concerning the minimum acceptable standard of living combined with a modest level of actual standard of living and a pessimistic estimation of personal and, in particular, societal well-being. Thirdly, there is a large consensus among all countries concerning the minimum standard of living regarded as absolutely necessary for a decent life. Apart from a few cultural peculiarities – e.g. the Swiss assignment of high significance to having monetary savings and low significance to owning a television – the national hierarchies of necessities are identical. This empirical evidence holds true for other European countries as well (e.g. Spain and Hungary). This means that on the normative level we are witnessing the emergence of a consensual European minimum standard of living. Concerning the actual standard of living, however, the disparities between and within countries are still considerable. (2) Direct and indirect measures of poverty: The emergence of a consensual minimum standard of living in Europe – as well as the disparities concerning the actual standard of living, the level and distribution of relative deprivation – indicate the significance of the direct, consumption-based measures of


29

poverty and social exclusion. Although there is a relationship between direct and indirect measures – e.g. between the degree of relative deprivation and income quintiles – the two measures produce different pictures. In the case of Germany and Slovenia, our data show a concentration of deprivation in the lowest income groups – but only small deprivation differences between the second and fifth income quintiles. Our empirical evidence suggests that direct and indirect measures are complementary rather than substitutive: They map different aspects of reality. Thus, indirect indicators and the traditional dimensions of inequality are important predictors of relative deprivation in all countries. Furthermore, both relative deprivation and indirect measures are relevant factors for explaining well-being. (3) Relative deprivation and well-being: Our empirical evidence concerning the relationship between wealth and well-being yields three results. First, subjective well-being is a two-dimensional concept. In all of the four countries examined, a dimension of individual well-being and a dimension of societal well-being can be distinguished. Individual subjective well-being – which is the most important dimension – concerns the micro-aspects of happiness – that is, all of those aspects which impact directly at the individual level. These include satisfaction with personal resources such as health, income, standard of living and education. Societal well-being refers to satisfaction with the broader social environment – e.g. the quality of life of municipalities and districts, as measured by public safety and the environmental situation. Secondly, the impact of wealth and objective living conditions on well-being is confined to the individual dimension of well-being. In all of the four countries analysed there is a strong relationship between individual well-being and both direct and indirect indicators of poverty and the traditional inequality and stratification measures. By contrast, societal well-being remains largely unaffected by deprivation, income or other inequality measures. Thirdly, relative deprivation – that is, a direct consumption-based measure – is an important determinant of individual well-being. Thus relative deprivation explains between 9 and 21 per cent of the variance of individual well-being in the four countries – the strongest effect can be found in Slovenia, the smallest in Austria. Hence, relative deprivation seems to be a more powerful explanatory factor than the income-based indirect measures. This leads us to the conclusion that deprivation rather than wealth or income in general is important for subjective well-being.

Notes 1. European Council of Ministers 1994 ruling. 2. Data have been available for seven countries: Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey (see WZB, 2002).

30


3. The figures for 2002 (GNP per capita, PPP US$) are: Switzerland: 31, 250, Austria: 28, 240, Germany: 26, 222, Slovenia 17, 690 (World Bank: http://www.worldbank. org/data/countrydata/countrydata.html). 4. The Gini coefficient is 0.31 for Switzerland (1992), 0.26 for Germany (1994), 0.28 for Austria (1995) and 0.29 for Slovenia (1993/94) (Jesuit and Smeeding, 2002 and World Bank, World Development Indicators 2001). 5. For a specific set of j items and a person or household i (i = 1, 2, . . ., n) in a specific country c (c = 1, 2, . . ., C), the non-standardized PDI would be: J

PDI ( nstd ) =

n c

∑ ∑ ( wj dij ) j =1 i =1

where dij is a binary variable that is assigned a value of 1 when household i cannot afford item j (j = 1, 2, . . ., J) and 0 when it can, and wjc is the proportion of respondents who consider item j to be absolutely necessary for a decent living in their respective country c. 6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

observed PDI ( std ) = --------------------- × 100 max observed = the observed score for a single case max = the maximum possible score for the country of origin. The income was determined by asking for the net monthly income of the household. In order to make the incomes of people from households of different sizes comparable, the equivalent per capita income was calculated. As the Euromodule data do not include information on the age of any children, the Atkinson scale was employed. The values on this scale are obtained from the square root of the number of household members (cf. Atkinson et al., 1995). The values on the Atkinson scale are very similar to those on the modified OECD scale. Dependent variable: belonging to the highest deprivation quintile; for details see Suter and Paris (2002) and the web site of the Institut de Sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel. The question concerning employment was not taken into account in our analyses, due to the fact that half of the respondents in our sample do not work. See additional Table A.2 at the website of the Institut de Sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel. The index values of the two dimensions have been calculated as weighted mean of the satisfaction components. We have used the correlation between each item and the factors to weight the components of our two indices. For more detailed information, see additional Table A.1 at the website of the Institut de Sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel. Detailed information on the regression models is given in the additional Tables A.3 and A.4 available at the website of the Institut de Sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel.

31

Appendix Table A1.1

List of variables

Indicator A: Demographic characteristics Gender Age Educational degree

Marital status Social class Employment status

B: Well-being Satisfaction with standard of living Satisfaction with household income Satisfaction with health Satisfaction with education Satisfaction with public safety Satisfaction with environmental situation Satisfaction with apartment Satisfaction with actual job Satisfaction with neighbourhood Individual well-being Societal well-being

Scaling and construction

1 = female; 0 = male 6 age groups: 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64 and over 65 ISCED 1997 scheme, 3 categories: ISCED 0–2: low (level of education below upper secondary level, no further qualification), ISCED 3–4: medium (upper secondary education, vocational training), ISCED 5–6: high (level of higher education, university). 4 types of marital status: ‘married’, ‘single’, ‘divorced or separated’, ‘widowed’ 3 categories: ‘lower class/working class’, ‘middle class’ and ‘upper middle/upper class’ 6 categories: ‘employed’ (has been in work during the last five years), ‘short-term unemployed’ (less than six months without work in the last five years), ‘long-term unemployed’ (without work for more than six months in the last five years), ‘retired’ (both early and regular retirement), ‘sick, disabled’ (long-term incapacity for work), ‘momentarily not in the workforce’ (e.g. homemakers, people in retraining) and the category ‘has never been employed’. 11-point scale (0 to 10); 0 = completely dissatisfied, 10 = completely satisfied 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) 11-point scale (0 to 10) weighted mean of satisfaction with standard of living, household income, health and education weighted mean of satisfaction with public safety and environmental situation

32 Table A1.1

(Continued)

Indicator C: Deprivation Actual standard of living Deprivation score Deprivation categories

D: Economic situation Household’s financial situation, compared to 1 year ago Household income

E: Others Living with partner Good health

Scaling and construction

List of 19 items; count ‘have’ List of 19 items; count ‘necessities’ and ‘cannot afford’,PDI cf. section 3 3 categories: ‘not deprived’ (PDI = 0), ‘somewhat deprived’ (0 < PDI ≤ 9th deprivation decile), ‘highly deprived’ (PDI = 10th deprivation decile) 3 categories: ‘clearly/some what deteriorated’, ‘remained the same’ and ‘improved somewhat/clearly improved’ 6 categories: 1st to 5th quintile of equivalent income and a category for the no response (respondents reported household income, open question, Atkinson scale)

0 = no, 1 = yes 2 categories: 0 = some extend/severely problems of health, 1 = no problem of health Crime incidents 2 categories: 0 = not subjected to crime, 1 = subjected to at least one of the following crimes during the last 12 months: get things stolen, be harassed or threatened, get sexual molested and be beaten and hurt. Membership of an association 1 = member of an association, 0 = no member Intensity of conflicts in the Mean of 6 types of conflicts: ‘between poor and rich’, country ‘between unemployed and people with jobs’, ‘between management and workers’, ‘between young and old people’, ‘between men and women’ and ‘between nationals and immigrants’. Scale 1 = no conflicts to 4 = very strong conflicts. Suffering from anxiety 2 categories: 0 = no anxiety; 1 = suffering from one or more of 5 types of anxieties: ‘exhaustion or fatigue’, ‘unhappy or depressed’, ‘shake or tremble’, ‘keyed up and jittery’ and ‘frightening thoughts’. Household composition 5 types of households: ‘single’, ‘couple without children living in the household’, ‘couple with 1–2 children younger than 18’, ‘couple with 3 and more children younger than 18’, ‘single parent family’ and ‘other household composition’.

Table A1.2

Factorial analysis for well-being Switzerland

satisfaction with: standard of living household income health education public safety environmental situation percent of explained variance n (unweighted) chi square sig weight

Austria

0.81

—

0.67

0.83

—

0.70

0.83

—

0.71

0.82

—

0.69

0.76

—

0.60

0.83

—

0.70

0.82

—

0.69

0.80

—

0.62 0.53 — —

— — 0.79 0.82

0.38 0.28 0.64 0.68

0.42 0.61 — —

— — 0.70 0.78

0.47 0.41 0.51 0.61

0.59 0.66 — —

— — 0.82 0.84

0.36 0.44 0.70 0.72

0.69 0.72 — —

— — 0.81 0.83

1570 732.9 7 0.000 yes

32.7

extraction factor communalities 1

23.9

36.2

factor 2

24.1


38.8

factor 2

Pooled sample (4 countries)

factor 2

22.2

factor 2

Slovenia

factor 1

31.9


Germany

23.4


factor 2

extraction communalities

0.82

—

0.70

0.67

0.80

—

0.67

0.49 0.53 0.66 0.70

0.63 0.68 — —

— — 0.80 0.85

0.42 0.46 0.68 0.72

37.0

502 483.7

2413 3006

1012 1199

5497 6119

0.000 yes

0.000 yes

0.000 no

0.000 yes

24.0

Notes: Factor analysis: rotation varimax, country individual weighting. Source: Euromodule 1999/2000.

33

34 Table A1.3

Determinants of individual well-being Individual well-being Switzerland

Deprivation Not deprived Some what deprived Highly deprived

b

t

b

t

b

t

not inc. −0.24**

−2.74

not inc. −0.41**

−3.21

not inc. −0.30***

−4.69

not inc. −0.39***

−4.14

−1.00***

−7.75

−0.76***

−3.75

−0.99***

−9.51

−1.36***

−8.40

Age 18–24 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65+

not inc. −0.24* n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.

Household’s financial situation Deteriorated Same Improved

−0.34*** not inc. n.s.

Income 1st quintile 2nd quintile 3rd quintile 4th quintile 5th quintile No answer

not inc. n.s. n.s. n.s. 0.24* n.s.

Social class Low Middle

Slovenia

t

n.s.

Marital status Married Single Separated or divorded Widowed

Germany

b

Gender (woman)

Household composition Single Couple 1–2 children

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