1. Family, Work & Well-Being

60-item module

This module focuses on the inter-relations between work, family and well-being. It deals with the implications for personal well-being of changes in the nature of work and in the nature of family and household structures. As far as working life is concerned, these changes include an increase in a-typical work and a general, if gradual, up-skilling of jobs. In the realm of the family, there has been an increase in the numbers of single-person households as well as of dual-earner families, alongside increased family dissolution. Everyday experiences of combining work and family obligations are crucial for life satisfaction and psychological well-being of European citizens. Many of those in work are torn between time stress on the one hand and economic security and self-fulfillment on the other; children's quality of life may be both negatively and positively affected by parents' work-and-family relations, and one spouse's well-being is almost certainly dependent on the other spouse's gainful employment and contribution to household chores. Exploring these relations in a comparative perspective should add not only to a general understanding of sources of satisfaction and psychological strain among European populations, but also to the role of national welfare regimes in this process. Hence, the aim of the module is to provide insights into current issues of work, family and well-being and into the interactions between them.

Full Proposal

Team:
Robert Erikson, SOFI, Stockholm University, Sweden
Josef Brüderl, MZES, University of Mannheim, Germany
Duncan Gallie, Nuffield College, Oxford, UK
Helen Russell, ESRI, Dublin, Ireland
Louis-André Vallet, LASMAS, Paris, France
Coordinator: Jan O. Jonsson, SOFI, Stockholm University, Sweden

2.  Opinions on Health & Care Seeking

30-item module

Health care is high on the policy agenda of most governments in Europe, mainly due to rising costs. Within Europe there are large differences in the provision of care. Some countries provide health care abundantly, to the point of medicalising society, while in other countries, publicly funded healthcare merely provides the basic necessities. The provision of services, along with a host of social and cultural factors, may have a strong influence on how people perceive their own health and how they seek care when ill. This module aims at providing data with which to map the interrelationships between structure and culture regarding the topic of health and care seeking.

It addresses the following topics:

1. Concepts of health What does (good) health mean to people? Is health primarily the absence of illness or is health defined differently: the ability to function, energy, self fulfilment?
2. Concepts of illness. When is a symptom considered as illness? What kind of symptoms require medical attention?
3. Seeking of ambulatory health care and taking medicines, attitudes towards treatment, perception of the doctor-patient relationship.

Full Proposal

Team:
Sjoerd Kooiker, Social and Cultural Planning Office, the Hague, the Netherlands.
Jakob Kragstrup, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Ebba Holme Hansen, Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Nicky Britten, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, UK.
Alicja Malgorzata Oltarzewska, Medical University of Bialystok, Poland.

3.  Economic Morality in Europe:  Market Society & Citizenship

30-item module

This module will build on existing comparative work and is designed to investigate the normative and moral culture of markets and consumption in European countries. It will establish how the 'economic morality' of market/consumer society develops in Europe under the pressure of globalisation, neo-liberal market policies and transition to market economies. The module will examine both the victimisation of consumers by large- and small-scale fraud and unfair practices, and their own involvement as offenders in an array of illegal, 'unethical' and 'shady' practices in different spheres of consumption (including government services). It establishes a conceptual framework for these phenomena, especially in terms of trust and confidence in business and state/government institutions, and general normative patterns. The module will provide cross-national information on consumer victimisation and offending, fear of victimisation and intentions to offend in the market place for the first time, hence establishing essential data of policy concern for business, government agencies and related bodies, and NGOs, such as consumer associations.

Full Proposal

Team:
Susanne Karstedt, Dept of Criminology, Keele University, UK
Stephen Farrall, Dept of Criminology, Keele University, UK.
Alexander Stoyanov, Centre for the Study of Democracy, Bulgaria.
Kai Bussmann, Dept of Law, Martin Luther University, FDR.
Grazyna Skapska, Inst. of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Poland.