With the recent rise of social media, ever faster developments in information technology and the race for innovation, the volume of data is constantly increasing. While digital-native giants such as Facebook and Uber have built their fortunes on collecting and processing data, the daily activities of businesses and governments also generate, collect and store vast amounts of data. In recent years, public organisations have become by far one of the richest data holders, holding archives of historical and current data. In light of this, since 2008, many governments have launched OGD platforms. By 2013, more than 280 OGD catalogues had been created and more than one million datasets had been published on OGD platforms. However, despite this increase in platforms, OGD are still little known to researchers and other potential stakeholders.

Therefore, this presentation aims to explore the Swiss OGD landscape and its benefits. After defining what OGD is – and what it is not – the presentation will focus on key issues, including the historical context of OGD, examining national policies, legal frameworks and their impact on federal institutions, and presenting some concrete applications of OGD reuse. The presentation will also highlight the opportunities and challenges that OGD presents to data-driven centers such as FORS. While OGD offers new opportunities to enrich research and foster collaboration, it also highlights the need for advanced data management strategies to address interoperability and discoverability issues. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of the challenges that OGD has met and continues to face.

In her research, based on two large-scale comparative surveys from FORS, the ISSP 2020 and ESS 2016,  Nathalie Vigna analyses the relationship between spatial and social stratification and willingness to pay for environmental policies. She shows consistent differences between socioeconomic groups and types of places from 13 European countries. Based on several indicators of socioeconomic position – education, class, household income – Nathalie Vigna’s research points to the fact that the least privileged groups of society are much less willing to pay higher taxes to protect the environment or mitigate climate change. This finding is observed for all the countries studied. It is also visible when using an alternative dependent variable based on a question asking people whether they would pay higher prices to protect the environment.

Furthermore, Nathalie Vigna highlights the intersection of social and spatial inequalities: willingness to pay is highest among upper-middle-class residents of urban centers, while residents of peripheral regions display lower levels of support. Nathalie Vigna’s research further contributes to the knowledge of environmental policy support by showing that these differences are only partially explained by the different levels of environmental concern or different beliefs about climate change across the social hierarchy. Her research has important implications for public policy, as raising awareness of climate change is not enough to make the most vulnerable people willing to contribute through personal costs. Environmental policy-makers can only seek public consensus by addressing social inequalities or providing progressive compensation.

The data underlying their research is available on SWISSUbase:
–https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/13102/latest/datasets/929/1396/overview
–https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/13953/latest/datasets/1232/2079/overview

Title: Local alien enfranchisement and external efficacy perceptions: intended and unintended effects on non-citizens and citizen

Authors: Anna-Lena Nadler et Elif Naz Kayran, winners of the FORS Data Re-use Award 2023

Abstract: Do citizens and non-citizens perceive themselves as more politically influential in contexts with more immigrant-inclusive local enfranchisement policies? Despite long-standing debates about the unequal responsiveness in the political systems of many advanced democracies, we still know little about whether targeted public policies at the local level can alter perceptions of political representation among residents. Importantly, little attention has been paid to the potential intended and unintended consequences of local electoral policies on external efficacy and research designs that include non-citizen residents. In this paper, we argue and test whether local alien enfranchisement raises external efficacy among non-citizens as a highly effective marker of immigrant inclusivity. Next, considering the potential spill-over effects of alien enfranchisement on citizens, we examine whether such electoral expansion is associated with a perceived increase in competition for political influence and a subsequent decline in citizens’ external efficacy. Empirically, we focus on the Swiss case and exploit local electoral institutions’ sub-national and temporal variation using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel from 1999 to 2014. The paper adds to earlier work by proposing local policy context regarding non-citizen enfranchisement as one of the predictors of external efficacy on the resident population. Our findings suggest that perceived political influence among non-citizens is higher in municipalities with inclusive enfranchisement. We find no evidence for citizens experiencing lower external efficacy when voting rights are extended, making alien enfranchisement potentially a valuable tool to improve political integration among immigrants in today’s diverse democracies.

Martina Rothenbühler is Scientific Program Manager and Data Protection Officer at the Diabetes Center Berne (DCB). The DCB is a private, independent Swiss foundation that aims to improve the lives of people with diabetes.

She gave a presentation on the following topic:

Clinical development using innovative trial designs and mixed methods

In diabetes research, the emergence of innovative clinical trial designs is closely linked to the growing availability of continuous health data from medical devices, such a continuous glucose measurement systems and insulin pumps, enabling more dynamic, real-world insights and personalized approaches in clinical research.

At Diabetes Center Berne, we are dedicated to simplifying life with diabetes, leveraging innovative trial designs to advance clinical solutions that address key unmet needs identified by the diabetes community. Our approach will be presented using a case study, from definition of a research question based on inputs from women with type 1 diabetes until the proposed implementation into the algorithm of a medical device.

These three Lunch Seminars were dedicated to the topic of Artificial Intelligence, designed to help you navigate and understand the dynamic AI landscape. They took place on September 24th, October 8th, and October 29th, 2024.

The AI Lunch Seminar Series were led by Bojana Tasic, Head of the Infrastructure and Development Unit at FORS.

Workshop 1: AI Ecosystem

Date: 24th of September 2024 

The following topics were covered:

• The journey of AI: From its beginnings to its current trajectory
• Fundamentals of Machine Learning: Generating insights from data, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning
• Deep Learning and Neural Networks: Understanding artificial neural networks, the workflow and layers of a neural network, and the applications of deep neural networks, including Generative AI like ChatGPT

Workshop 2: Working with AI and Practical Tools

Date: 8th of October 2024

Dr. Thé Van Luong, Head of AI and IT systems for research at the UNIL joined this seminar as a guest presenter.

They explored the following:

• Utilizing useful AI tools for various applications
• Enhancing productivity and innovation through AI-driven solutions

Workshop 3: Legal and Ethical Framework of AI

Date: 29th of October 2024 

The following key topics were discussed

• The three major pitfalls of AI: Privacy, Explainability, and Bias
• Ethical dilemmas: The Trolley Problem and other ethical challenges
• Legal implications: Navigating the complex legal landscape of AI
• Ethical considerations in practice: Algorithmic bias, face recognition, and the ethical use of neural networks for creating deepfakes

Pedro Araujo PhD, Senior Researcher at FORS presented the following research:

From dynastic families to transnational top managers: Transformation of power structures within the Swiss business elite (1890-2020)

Over the course of the 20th century, the Swiss business elite underwent profound structural change. Once dominated by familial dynasties perpetuating control, the firms where these individuals operate have transitioned from locally anchored family businesses to global corporations managed by transnational managers with no ties to the founding families. Traditional national institutions of selection and recruitment, such as apprenticeships and military service, have eroded. Executives progressively distanced themselves from other realms of influence, particularly the political sphere, and became increasingly international.

The presentation delves into these transformative shifts by scrutinizing the careers of executives across key economic sectors in the three Swiss largest cities, namely Basel, Geneva, and Zurich, at seven benchmark years (1890, 1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000, and 2020). It will address how the selection of individuals at positions of power has changed within the Swiss economic sphere during the analyzed historical period. The results presented are part of a larger 4-year research project (SNSF Sinergia), conducted between 2020 and 2024.

Dawid Gondek PhD, Senior Researcher at FORS

Title: Estimating the causal effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health – a futile task ?

Abstract
There has been an abundance of studies aiming to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health. Investigating an “impact” of a phenomenon implies that the study objectives are causal. Nonetheless, the vast majority of evidence on the Covid-19 pandemic and mental health has been descriptive. Despite its importance, descriptive studies are often undervalued in social sciences. Is estimating the causal effect of the pandemic feasible? If so, is it even useful?

In this talk, Dawid Gondek discussed the assumptions required to estimate average causal effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health. Researchers typically focus on exchangeability, which refers to a lack of confounding. However, other assumptions in causal inference – positivity and consistency – are often overlooked. Consistency assumption requires that the exposure is defined unambiguously so that it can be acted on by a potential well-defined intervention. Hence, the key question becomes – how do we define the Covid-19 pandemic? Dawid Gondek shared some suggestions going forward based on the work conducted within the CovidGen project.

Robin Benz and Tobias Ackermann (ICER, University of Bern)

Disadvantaged by Chance? Cut-off Dates for School Enrolment and Their Consequences for Educational Outcomes

Abstract:
Pupils who did not start learning at the same level as their peers might subsequently fall behind throughout their educational careers (e.g., Heckman 2006; Passaretta et al. 2022). The modalities of compulsory school admission may contribute to the emergence of early gaps in educational performance. Nearly all education systems have arbitrarily chosen cut-off dates for school enrolment, which create age differences of up to a year within a cohort of pupils. Prior research has shown that the youngest pupils in a cohort fall behind their relatively older peers in educational performance (e.g., Bedard and Dhuey 2006; Peña 2017; Dicks and Lancee 2018). These performance gaps are coined as relative age effects, which can be framed within theories of cumulative (dis)advantages (e.g., DiPrete and Eirich 2006).

Drawing on a comprehensive data set encompassing the entire student population in North Western Switzerland (BR NWCH 2021), the study addresses three research questions. First, it is investigated to what extent pupils’ relative age affects their educational achievement in different subjects and track placement in secondary education. Second, by exploiting the longitudinal structure of the data, it is examined whether the influence of relative age diminishes the course of educational trajectories. Third, the study establishes a record linkage between administrative data and pupils’ test data to investigate whether pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds suffer more strongly from relative age effects.

A pupil’s relative age might be correlated with various unobserved factors. Two strategies are employed to address these endogeneity concerns. First, the study employs an instrumental variable approach using “assigned relative age” (e.g., Bedard and Dhuey 2006) as an instrument for pupils’ actual age. Second, the study uses a regression discontinuity design contrasting pupils born just before and after the cut-off date to estimate relative age effects in Switzerland.

Preliminary results provide evidence that students with a relative age advantage when they entered school achieve significantly higher than their counterparts with a relative age disadvantage during their first years of primary education. However, relative age effects vanish the more students advance in their educational trajectory. Additional analyses shed light on potential effect heterogeneity.

The study illustrates how early disadvantages emerge by chance through arbitrarily chosen cut-off dates for school eligibility. Scholars and policy-makers alike are urged to debate how the modalities of school entry can be designed to ensure equal starting conditions for all.

Katarzyna Wac (University of Geneva)

Title: mQoL Living Lab: Quantifying Quality of Life Beyond Self-Reporting and Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine

Abstract:
Current Quality of Life assessment methods and tools are mostly based on self-reports, which are infrequent, subjective, memory-based, and context-poor. Personal technologies can enable quality-of-life quantification. But how? The Quality of Life Technologies (QoL Lab) lab has been established in 2010 and since then is researching how mobile and emerging sensor-based technologies can be leveraged for an accurate, longitudinal personalized assessment of the individual’s behavior and life quality, as they unfold naturally over time and in context, and the improvement of the latter. The QoL lab research draws on new emerging models from computer science incorporating examination, diagnosis, and treatment of daily life as an “organ” – much like a cardiologist examines heart. The mQoL Living Lab is a software infrastructure designed and maintained by the QoL Lab that leverages personal, longitudinal, real-world data approaches acquired via mixed-methods along human subject studies spanning observational to interventional designs (including RCT and N-of-1 designs). More at qol.unige.ch.

Dawid Gondek (FORS) presented the following project:

Title: Deriving a measure of wellbeing in the Swiss Household Panel and examining its psychometric properties

Abstract: The Swiss Household Panel is a large, nationally representative survey of households in Switzerland. It has been an invaluable source of knowledge about wellbeing at the population level, often serving for cross-countries comparisons. However, the researchers have been highly inconsistent in their use of wellbeing indicators, making comparability of findings across studies difficult. Hence, we aimed to derive a measure of wellbeing and examine its psychometric properties.

We assessed the factorial structure and internal reliability of identified wellbeing indicators and tested their measurement invariance across age groups, periods, genders, languages of questionnaire completion and modes of collection.

We demonstrated that psychometrically robust wellbeing measure can be derived using individual items of the Swiss Household Panel. The measure comprises two subscales: 1) positive affect and life satisfaction, 2) negative affect. An overall score of wellbeing, despite having a satisfactory internal reliability, should be used with caution, as our findings suggests that it is not a unidimensional construct when operationalised in the Swiss Household Panel. Some caution, however, needs to be taken when an overall score of wellbeing is used or the research question is about comparing age or lingual groups.

Our research has potential to save researchers valuable time and inform their decisions about using the measures of wellbeing. Furthermore, using a consistent measure of wellbeing can make research using the SHP more comparable, which will facilitate interpreting effect sizes.

Paulina Pankowska (Assistant Professor at the Sociology department of Utrecht University and currently visiting researcher at LIVES) presented the following:

Accelerating progress in the social sciences: the potential of benchmarks

Abstract: Social scientists aim to create explanations of the world. For each social phenomena, scientists have proposed a myriad of theories to explain its working mechanisms. Traditionally, these theories are tested by translating them into statistical models and assessing the significance of the model coefficients. This approach however is not free of shortcomings. Most importantly, it can result in the specification of a variety of models that represent competing theories, are based on different statistical techniques, or include different predictors of the social phenomena studied. While equally plausible and well-justified, these models often provide contradictory results and lead to inconsistent findings. As things currently stand, there is no framework that allows for the comparison of these models and the question of which model works better under which circumstances remains unanswered. As a result, it is difficult to evaluate conflicting theories, and monitor progress in the social sciences.

We argue that benchmarks can be used as such a standard frame of reference and accelerate progress in the field of social sciences. They have large potential for answering long standing questions in the field and can drive the field forward. We define a benchmark as a standardized validation framework that allows for the direct comparison of the prediction accuracy of various models which address the same research problem. The use of benchmarks has led to progress and breakthroughs in many fields of science including computer and data science, physics, biomedicine, and the humanities.

The slides of the presentation

It was a great pleasure to invite the authors of the following FORS GUIDES to present their latest guides:

Data Citation: How and Why Citing (Your Own) Data (FORS Guide N°19), Christina Bornatici, Nicolas Fedrigo

Qualitative data anonymisation: theoretical and practical considerations for anonymising interview transcripts (FORS Guide N°20), Alexandra Stam, Pablo Diaz

Data Sharing in the Social Sciences (FORS Guide N°21), Marieke Heers

Measuring psychological constructs (FORS Guide N°22), Valérie-Anne Ryser

All the FORS Guides publications can be viewed here: https://forscenter.ch/publications/fors-guides/.

Olga Gorodetskaya (PhD candidate – Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento and currently visiting researcher at LIVES) presented the following project:

The best time to become a parent: The effect of tenure on fertility among academics in Italy

Joint work with

Valentina Tocchioni, University of Florence, Agnese Vitali, University of Trento and Alessandra Minello, University of Padua

 Abstract

Previous literature convincingly showed that women who work in Academia tend to have slower careers compared to their male peers and are less likely to reach top academic positions. Childbearing has been indicated as responsible for a considerable part of the existing gender gap in Academia. While the association between fertility and career progression is well known, little do we know about the reverse link: does career progression foster fertility among academic women? And what about men? The aim of this contribution is to verify whether and how academic position and academic promotion has an impact on three fertility-related outcomes: (1) the transition to parenthood, (2) the transition to the second child, and (3) short-term fertility intentions. We use a unique source of primary-collected survey data on a large sample of Italian female and male academics, including retrospective information on fertility histories and job histories, and their fertility intentions. All stages of career progression of PhD graduates are considered, from postdoctoral researcher up to full professor. We apply discrete time event-history models on the transition to the first- and second-child birth and logistic regression for fertility intentions, separately for men and women. Our preliminary results show that both male and female academics wait until obtaining their first tenure-track position to become a first time-parent; however, the ‘fertility window’ for men is larger than for women. Conversely, no significant difference among academic ranks as well as genders emerges with regards to the transition to a second child, where other factors may play a role.

Maud Reveilhac (Post-doctoral student at the Department of Communication and Media Research, Zurich University) presented the following project:

Integrating surveys and social media to better understand the dynamics of public opinion

Abstract

Our study presents results around the influence of social media on survey results, especially by looking at the variations of topic and tweeter have on that influence. To do so, we propose two study cases of Swiss politics about social media effect on opinion change during election and about the similarity of arguments in direct democracy votes. We rely on a two-year longitudinal data collection of tweets emitted by more than 50’000 identified Swiss seed users and their most active followers. In a first step, the article investigates the extent to which the topics most important to the public correlate with communication available on Twitter for different users groups (notably, politicians, media actors and users interested in politics). We also benchmark the results against external data about mass media content and a survey of political candidates. In a second step, and based on open-ended responses from representative survey conducted during direct democracy campaigns, we assess the congruence between supportive and opposing voting arguments from a representative sample of citizens and communication from several Twitter groups (notably, politicians, associations, activists, etc). These results have the potential to inform researchers of the circumstances in which social media data are most likely to be available and a useful complement to surveys for understanding the dynamics of public opinion.

During the seminar the winners of the FORS Data Re-use Award 2022 Rita Schmutz (first prize) and Mengling Cheng (second prize) presented their work and received their awards.

Rita Schmutz (LIVES, University of Lausanne) presented the following project:

Inequality of Educational Opportunity in Switzerland: Exploring Regional Differences and Institutional Factors

Abstract

This study provides estimates of inequality of educational opportunity (IEOp) in compulsory education in Switzerland using the 2016 Swiss large-scale assessments of basic competencies (ÜGK – COFO – VeCoF) dataset. IEOp measures the share of inequality in the distribution of educational performance that can only be attributed to students’ characteristics beyond their control (circumstances), such as their family socioeconomic status (SES), parental education, gender, and immigrant status. By employing a parametric ex-ante estimation approach, I estimate that IEOp in Switzerland is 21%, with considerable heterogeneity across cantons and the German-speaking region showing higher levels of unfair educational inequalities. The IEOp estimates are decomposed to identify the contributions of different circumstances and to develop a better understanding of the observed inequality. Socioeconomic status, parental education, and occupation are the most relevant circumstances in most cantons. Inequality of educational opportunity is associated with the institutional structure of cantonal education systems. Educational inputs in primary school explained most of the cross-canton variation in IEOp, followed by the level of stratification in secondary school.

Mengling Cheng (LIVES, University of Lausanne) presented the following project:

Evolution of the income-related gap in health with old age: Evidence from 20 countries in European and Chinese panel datasets

(joint work with Nicolas Sommet, Daniela Jopp and Dario Spini)

Abstract

Background: Some studies show that the protective effect of higher income on health weakens with old age (the age-as-leveler pattern), whereas others show that it strengthens with old age (the cumulative advantage/disadvantage pattern). Existing studies are limited in that they use single-country and/or single-timepoint designs. To overcome these limitations, we used cross-national and longitudinal data to clarify how the income-related gap in health evolves with old age.

Methods: We used the longest-running European and Chinese panel datasets, namely, SHARE (2004-2019, 73,407 European participants from 19 countries) and CHARLS (2011-2018, 10,067 Chinese participants). We operationalised health using multimorbidity and three alternative indicators (functional disability, mobility disability, and memory). We performed Poisson growth curve modeling to capture the between-participant effects of age and the within-participant effects of aging.

Results: We obtained three consistent findings for both Europe (the effect was observed in most countries) and China. First, the protective effect of higher income on multimorbidity, functional disability, and mobility disability was weaker for older than for younger adults (between-participant age-as-leveler effects). Second, only the protective effect of higher income on mobility disability weakened over the later life course (within-participant age-as-leveler effects). Third, the protective effect of higher income on memory was stronger for older than for younger adults and strengthened over the later life course of the individual (both between-participant and within-participant cumulative advantage/disadvantage effects).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the income-related gap in physical health (i.e., multimorbidity, functional disability, and mobility disability)—but not in cognitive health (i.e., memory)—narrows in old age for both Europe and China.

Jonathan Jubin^a, Emilie Antille^b, Vladimir Jolidon^b, Léonard Roth^b and Isabelle Peytremann Bridevaux^b presented the following project:

^a La Source School of Nursing, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, 1004 Lausanne

^b Epidemiology and Health Systems, Center for Primary Care and Public Health, 1010 Lausanne

The Swiss COhort of Healthcare Professionals and Informal CAregivers (SCOHPICA): Career trajectories, intent to stay/leave the profession, wellbeing, and their determinants

 Abstract 

To address the shortage of qualified personnel and prepare for the future, the Swiss healthcare system needs reliable data on its professionals, their employment trajectory and the reasons why they leave or stay in their profession. However, such data is scarce in Switzerland. Therefore, the SCOHPICA open cohort has started surveying in autumn 2022 professionals working with patients from all sectors of healthcare regardless of their status and practice settings. The longitudinal study design is mixed, consisting of a yearly online questionnaire and biennial focus groups. Additionally, SCOHPICA aims to launch in 2024 a cohort of informal caregivers, who are key yet often forgotten actors of the health system. Raw data and results will be made available to decision-makers and researchers through a repository and an interactive online platform.

Maud Wieczorek (Centre LIVES, Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland) will present the following project:

Association between multiple chronic conditions and insufficient health literacy: cross-sectional evidence from a population-based sample of older adults living in Switzerland

Abstract 

Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, assess, and apply health information. Individuals suffering from multiple chronic conditions have complex healthcare needs that may challenge their health literacy skills. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between multimorbidity, the number of chronic conditions, and health literacy levels in a sample of adults aged 58+ in Switzerland.

We used data from 1,615 respondents to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire administered as part of wave 8 (2019/2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in Switzerland. Health literacy was measured using the short version of the European Health Literacy Survey questionnaire. The final score ranged from 0 to 16 and was categorised into three health literacy levels: inadequate (0–8), problematic (9–12), and sufficient (13–16). The number of chronic conditions was self-reported based on a pre-defined list. Associations were examined using multivariable ordinary least squares and ordered probit regression models, controlling for key socio-demographic characteristics.

Overall, 63.5% of respondents reported having at least one chronic condition. Respondents who reported one, two, and three or more chronic conditions were more likely to have lower health literacy scores compared to respondents who did not report any chronic condition (p<0.05, p<0.01, and p<0.001, respectively). Suffering from two and three or more chronic conditions (vs. no chronic condition) was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of having inadequate or problematic health literacy levels (both p-values <0.01).

Our findings suggest a need to improve health literacy in older adults suffering from chronic conditions. Improved health literacy could constitute a promising lever to empower individuals to better self-manage their health to ultimately reduce the double burden of chronic diseases and insufficient health literacy in this vulnerable population.