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The Differentiation of Social Demands in Europe. The Social Basis of the European Models of Capitalism

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Abstract

This paper tests the impact of various determinants of the preference for two key elements of the European social models: redistribution and trade unions, using individual data from the first round of the European Social Survey. The basic hypothesis is that the main determinant of an individual’s support for these elements of the European models is the social position of the individual in terms of income, status and risks attached to their labour market insertion. The paper also considers the relative importance of less ‘materialist’ influences such as religion or other cultural determinants. The estimations show that ‘materialist’ determinants are by far the most important influences on individual preferences, contrary to what most social theories of modernisation contend.

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Notes

  1. However, a full set of country dummies is always kept.

  2. Table 10 presents a generalised ordered logit estimation.

  3. Managers correspond to Major Group 1 of the ISCO-88 classification: legislators, senior officials and managers. Executives are high-skilled professionals (see definition in Appendix).

  4. See also Boes and Winkelmann (2004).

  5. The gologit2 Stata program written by Williams (Williams 2006) is used with the autofit option.

  6. Any differences from the probabilities in the estimations in Tables 7 and 8 are small. See Appendix Figs. 20 and 21.

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Acknowledgements

This research has benefited from the support of the European Commission FP6 Specific Targeted Research Project ESEMK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Paris I – Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112 Boulevard de I’Hôpital, 75647, Paris cedex 13, France

    Bruno Amable

  2. CES, Paris, France

    Bruno Amable

  3. CEPREMAP, Paris, France

    Bruno Amable

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  1. Bruno Amable
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Correspondence to Bruno Amable.

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Household Income

Scale for the estimation of the household’s net income: If you add up the income from all sources, which letter describes your household’s total net income? If you don’t know the exact figure, please give an estimate.

Managers: corresponds to Major Group 1 of the ISCO-88 classification: legislators, senior officials and managers.

Science: Physicists, chemists and related professionals, life science professionals, social science and related professionals, teaching professionals, archivists, librarians and related information professionals.

Executives: Computing professionals, architects, engineers and related professionals, ships’ engineers, ships’ deck officers and pilots, aircraft pilots and related associate professionals, business professionals, health professionals (except nursing), Legal professionals, finance and sales associate professionals, business services agents and trade brokers, administrative associate professionals.

Public: Social work professionals, public service administrative professionals, safety and quality inspectors, customs, tax and related government associate professionals, police inspectors and detectives, social work associate professionals, personal care and related workers, protective services workers, teaching associate professionals.

Clerks: Office clerks, customer services clerks, personal services workers, models, salespersons and demonstrators.

Technicians: Physical and engineering science associate technicians, computer associate professionals, optical and electronic equipment operators, ship and aircraft controllers and technicians, air traffic controllers, air traffic safety technicians, life science and health associate professionals, craft and related trades workers, skilled agricultural and fishery workers.

Lowskill: Plant and machine operators and assemblers, sales and services elementary occupations.

Table 9 Your household income
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Table 10  
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Fig. 20
figure 20

Impact of household income (agree strongly). Model with additional controls

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Fig. 21
figure 21

Impact of household income (disagree). Model with additional controls

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Amable, B. The Differentiation of Social Demands in Europe. The Social Basis of the European Models of Capitalism. Soc Indic Res 91, 391–426 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9340-6

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