Jesper Rözer

Does income inequality have lasting effects on health and trust

According to the income inequality hypothesis, income inequality is associated with poorer health. One important proposed mechanism for this effect is reduced trust. In this study, we argue that income inequality during a persons formative years (i.e., around age 16) may have lasting consequences for trust and health. Multilevel analyses of data from the combined World Values Survey and European Values Study that were collected between 1981 and 2014 support our prediction and show that income inequality is associated with ill health in young adults, in part because it reduces their social trust. The negative consequences of income inequality remain stable for a substantial period of life but eventually fade away and have no effect after age 36.

Romantic relationship formation, maintenance and changes in personal networks

According to the social withdrawal hypothesis, a personal network becomes smaller when a person starts dating, cohabitates and marries. This phenomenon is widely established in the literature. However, these studies were usually done with cross-sectional data. As a consequence, it is still unclear whether or how personal networks actually change after the formation of a romantic relationship (i.e. dating), after starting cohabitation and after getting married. It is also unclear how long and to what extent social withdrawal continues. To overcome these shortcomings, we examine how the size and composition of personal networks change after relationship formation. We use two waves of the PAIRFAM dataset (2008 and 2011), which include information about 6640 Germans who were between 16 and 39 years of age at the time of the second interview in 2008. Results from fixed effects regression models underscore that the association between romantic relationships and changes in personal networks is more dynamic than previous studies suggested. For example, after the formation of a romantic relationship people show a decrease in non-kin contacts, while an increase in non-kin contacts is observed after two years of dating, as well as after two years of cohabitation. These network changes suggest that people adapt their social networks to the demands and constraints of each phase of a romantic relationship. Because the decline in network size after dating is not stable, there is no need to be afraid that those who have a romantic partner remain isolated from other relationships.

Family and Friends: Which Types of Personal Relationships Go Together in a Network?

We examine the link between family and personal networks. Using arguments about meeting opportunities, competition and social influence, we hypothesise how the presence of specific types of family members (i.e., a partner, children, parents and siblings) and non-family members (i.e., friends, neighbours and colleagues) in the network mutually affect one another. In addition, we propose that—beyond their mere presence—the active role of family members in the network strongly affects the presence of non-family members in the network. Data from the third wave of the Survey on the Social Networks of the Dutch, collected in 2012 and 2013, show that active involvement is of key importance; more than merely having family members present in one’s personal network, the active involvement of specific types of family members in the personal network is associated with having disproportionally more other family members and having somewhat fewer non-family members in the network.

National income inequality and self-rated health: the differing impact of individual social trust across 89 countries

ABSTRACT The well-known Income Inequality Hypothesis suggests that income disparities in a country are detrimental for peoples health. Empirical studies testing this hypothesis so far have found mixed results. In this study, we argue that a reason for these mixed findings may be that high national income inequality mostly harms individuals with high levels of social trust. We employ data of the World Value Survey and European Value Survey, using information on 393,761 respondents within 89 countries. Multilevel regression analyses, across countries and within countries across time, confirm findings from earlier studies that there is a negative association between national income inequality and self-rated health. Our results also reveal that national income inequality is especially detrimental for trustful citizens: while the effect of income inequality is nearly absent among people with low social trust it is negative among people with high social trust.

Partner selection and social capital in the status attainment process

Why is individual success so strongly affected by parental socioeconomic status? We argue that parental socioeconomic status affects the socioeconomic status of ones romantic partner, thereby partially determining ones own social capital and socioeconomic status. Censored-inflated structural equation models using data from the NEtherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (NELLS) and British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) confirm these relationships, while cross-lagged analyses suggest that they may be causal in nature. The strong tendency for people to have a romantic partner that reflects their socioeconomic origin shows how far the influence of the parental home stretches and why it does so.

Families’ Division of Labor and Social Networks in the 21st Century : Revisiting Elizabeth Bott’s Classic Hypotheses

In 1957, Elizabeth Bott argued that the organization of family and social networks are intertwined and that the structure and composition of social networks are associated with the ways in which spouses divide household and paid labor. While this idea became a classic in the literature addressing the division of labor, societies have changed tremendously in the past 50 years, and it has become far more common for spouses to divide their labor more equally. In addition, the causal direction is not clear: Do networks affect the division of labor or vice versa? We inquired as to the causal relationship using a large-scale longitudinal data set, collected in 2009/2010 and 2011/2012 (n = 2477; PAIRFAM [Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics]). We found moderate support for the hypothesis that personal networks influence the division of labor in households, but there were stronger effects for the reverse—that is, that the division of labor affects network patterns, particularly for women.

Cross-national research with multilevel data: Is national income inequality good for all?

The well-known income inequality hypothesis implies that people in countries with a more equal income distribution show higher levels of well-being than people in unequal countries. To adequately test this hypothesis, it is first important that individual-level aspects such as income, education and social trust are adequately taken into account. This is relevant especially because people in equal countries are more likely to possess high levels of income, education and social trust, which may seriously influence the actual effect of income inequality. To deal with this methodological issue, it is preferred to use multilevel data that consists of information of various people across various countries. To constitute multilevel data, we employ the World Value Survey and the European Value Survey, and enrich it with contextual national-level information. Analyzing multilevel data with ordinary regression may result in the hypothesis on the national level being too easily accepted. It, therefore, is advisable to employ multilevel analyses. Results from our multilevel analysis indicate that (among the developed countries) national income inequality is not detrimental for peoples well-being, and that people with higher income, education and social trust do report higher levels of well-being.