The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Portrait Jan Mewes. Photo.

Jan Mewes

Associate Professor | Senior Lecturer

Portrait Jan Mewes. Photo.

What determines subjective socio-economic insecurity? Context and class in comparative perspective

Author

  • Steffen Mau
  • Jan Mewes
  • Nadine M. Schöneck

Summary, in English

The phenomenon of socio-economic insecurity is widely discussed in contemporary public and academic discourse. However, it is unclear how objective socio-economic and institutional conditions affect subjective feelings of insecurity. Based on a review of the relevant literature, we hypothesize that objective contextual factors of labour market characteristics, levels of social protection and levels of internationalization and globalization exacerbate or mitigate subjective feelings of insecurity. We derive and test specific hypotheses using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey (fielded 2008/2009). Based on our multilevel analysis of 18 412 individuals in 19 countries, we find that socio-economic (GDP) and institutional (welfare state effort) factors are relevant to subjective socio-economic insecurity, whereas the degree of internationalization (economic globalization, share of foreign-born population) plays a surprisingly negligible role. Moreover, significant cross-level interactions among social class and income inequality, unemployment, labour market regulation and economic globalization indicate that these country-level factors have a class-specific impact.

Publishing year

2012-10-01

Language

English

Pages

655-682

Publication/Series

Socio-Economic Review

Volume

10

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Keywords

  • C31 cross-sectional models
  • Economic anthropology
  • Globalization
  • I30 welfare and poverty - general
  • Labor market protection
  • Quantile regressions
  • Social and economic stratification
  • Social interaction models
  • Social security
  • Socio-economic insecurity
  • Spatial models
  • Treatment effect models
  • Z13 economic sociology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1475-1461