Weakening social cohesion in Europe? Indicators, analysis and policy implications

This is the theme of the 14th Conference “Social Monitoring and Reporting in Europe” at Villa Vigoni, Loveno di Menaggio, Italy.

Invited are contributions looking at social cohesion as an important topic of social monitoring and reporting from either perspective, within as well as between European societies. More specifically, the conference seeks to bring together and discuss empirical evidence, allowing to better assess whether or not social cohesion within and between societies is weakening or declining.

Submit your abstract (no more than 300 words) to Dr. Heinz-Herbert Noll (hh.noll@t-online.de). The deadline for submissions was May 15, 2019.

The European Consortium of Sociological Research (ECSR) will hold its next annual conference at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland on 12-14 September 2019. The conference theme is:

https://ecsr2019.sciencesconf.org/

La septième édition du «Festival suisse des méthodes qualitatives» se déroulera les lundi 9 et mardi 10 septembre 2019 à l’Université de Lausanne (bâtiment Géopolis).

Selon une formule désormais bien rodée, le Festival se propose de présenter les innovations récentes dans le domaine des méthodes qualitatives et mixtes. A l’instar de l’édition de 2017, la manifestation se propose une fois encore de mettre l’accent sur une thématique particulière. Pour cette édition, ce sont les enjeux et les défis soulevés par l’open data qui seront mis en avant par le biais de 3 ateliers thématiques et deux séances plénières.

Le Festival offre une plateforme d’échange aux chercheuses et chercheurs des sciences sociales et humaines (et spécialement aux doctorant-e-s et post-doctorant-e-s) désirant se former à de nouvelles méthodes. Il vise également à réunir la communauté de recherche qualitative active en Suisse romande et se déroulera principalement en langue française. Plus concrètement, des spécialistes renommé-e-s seront à disposition pour discuter de l’application de méthodes et théories dans le cadre de différents ateliers de recherche. Les participant-e-s qui le désirent auront ainsi l’occasion d’aborder des questions au plus proche de leurs préoccupations.

Le lundi après-midi aura lieu la conférence de Ghislaine Chartron (CNAM):  « L’ouverture des données en SHS » et la table ronde « Les enjeux de l’open data pour la recherche qualitative »

Choix des ateliers

Prix du Festival:

CHF 120.- + TVA (3 ateliers)

Ce prix contient la participation à trois ateliers, les pauses café et 2 bons de repas et l’apéritif.

CHF 80.- + TVA (2 ateliers)

Ce prix contient la participation à deux ateliers, les pauses café et 2 bons de repas et l’apéritif.

Inscription

https://forscenter.ch/event/7eme-festival-suisse-des-methodes-qualitatives/

Photo credit: ID 149505197 © Profitimage | Dreamstime.com

You need to acquire new or other tools and approaches, that where not covered during your formal training?

After having completed your initial degrees (bachelor, master) you start working on a PhD project or get a job as (research) assistant or collaborator within academia or outside. You feel that your methodological skills are somewhat shaky, too theoretical and many practical problems were not really covered?

Then attend our Summer School in Social Science Methods in Lugano between August 16 and 30, 2019:

Intensive one-week courses (Monday to Friday). Even if your work load is very heavy, you should be able to spare 5 days in late summer to learn something new.

Oriented towards real practical applications, not only abstract theory and trivial technical exercises (you will be able to apply what you have learned when back home)

Highly qualified instructors, experts in their field and open to discuss your research problems (Instructors are asked to spend at least 50% of the teaching time to applied work and discussions of problems, including problems you encounter within your research projects.)

Small groups of highly motivated participants: Meet and exchange with fellow participants working in many different scientific disciplines and from many institutions in Switzerland and abroad

Last but not least: the location (Lugano)

Detailed information:

https://forscenter.ch/events-training/summer-school/

Programme:

https://forscenter.ch/events-training/summer-school/workshop-programme/

This is the topic of the next FORS Lunch seminar with Jessica Herzing, Caroline Roberts and Daniel Gatica-Perez (EPFL).

From 12:15 to 13h15 in room 5408 at Geopolis, UNIL.

Smartphones present many exciting opportunities for social researchers across a wide range of disciplines. Yet there are numerous challenges associated with gaining the cooperation of research participants, maintaining their privacy, and developing and exploiting technologies that are simultaneously adapted to human behavior, engaging to use (e.g. by taking photographs, or providing access to their sensor data), and which motivate the sharing of information for research purposes.

In this presentation, we will give an overview of our research into public willingness in Switzerland to participate in surveys on mobile phones. We will start with a brief summary of current research on mobile web data collection, in particular, data collection using smartphone applications, and the opportunities and challenges it presents for survey researchers. Then we will describe our current research in this domain (the LOIS project generally, Selects Civique specifically), and how it addresses some of these opportunities and challenges. We will focus in particular on the design of the Selects Civique study, which is currently in the field, and present some preliminary findings. We will also present next steps for the research and discuss some of the implications for the future of survey data collection in Swiss surveys.

10th International Conference of Panel Data Users in Switzerland: 20 years of the Swiss Household Panel

Registration is now open for the special anniversary edition of the International Conference of Panel Data Users. The conference will include a plenary session with Prof. Monica Budowski on the historical development of the Swiss Household Panel, a round table on the future of the SHP and household panels in general, as well as thematic sessions. The thematic sessions cover a variety of topics, including health and well-being, education and labour market, socio-economic inequality and mobility, family and gender, religion and religiosity, ethnic minorities and migration, politics and attitudes, households’ energy demand, survey methodology, and longitudinal methods.

Program

All abstracts

Accommodation

Conference venue

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Monday, Mai 6, from 12:15 to 13h15 in room 5408 at Geopolis.

Marieke Voorpostel will present the results of the mixed mode pilot conducted by the Swiss Household Panel.

First results of the two-wave mixed mode pilot for the Swiss Household Panel

In a two-wave pilot, The Swiss Household Panel (SHP) is exploring the feasibility of using online questionnaires as a complement or alternative to the current main mode of telephone interviewing. The pilot compares three designs: mainly telephone, mixed telephone/web, and mainly web. The fieldwork of the two waves was completed early 2018 and 2019. In this presentation, I discuss findings with respect to response rates, sample composition (W1 and W2) and measurement quality (W1). I conclude with preliminary conclusions with respect to the design of the next refreshment sample of the SHP that will start in 2020.

Simon Seiler, Marc Höglinger (ZHAW) and Jürgen Maurer (UNIL)

Health of the older population in Switzerland

Mandated by the Federal Office of Public Health, this study uses data from the “Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe” (SHARE) to describe the health of the population aged 55 and older in Switzerland. Besides a general overview over subjective health, non-communicable deceases (NCDs) and health behaviors, the report draws on the WHO’s concept of “healthy aging” by placing a special emphasizes on individual’s quality of life and autonomy. The study reveals important differences by gender, age, income, educational level, migration status, and household situation for most of the analyzed health related aspects of the older population in Switzerland.

The Lunch Seminar will take place at Géopolis in room 5408, 12:15 to 13:15.

Oliver Hümbelin, Senior Researcher at Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) Centre for Social Security, will give a talk entitled:

How deductions undermine the redistribution effect of taxes – research with Swiss tax data 

Abstract

In many OECD countries, the inequality between the rich and the poor has increased in recent decades. Some authors put the blame on the withdrawal of the state, which is redistributing less and less through progressive taxes and social benefits. In comparative studies Switzerland is seen as a country with low economic inequality and low redistribution. At the same time, the analysis based on the tax statistics of the Federal Tax Administration shows a significant increase in inequality between and within individual cantons. Since a large proportion of direct taxes in Switzerland are regulated at the cantonal level, it seems appropriate to conduct welfare state analyses at this level. Tax data offer special opportunities with the level of detail of the tax data making it possible to examine direct effects of the progression of federal, cantonal and municipal taxes but also indirect effects of tax deductions. The main part of the talk presents empirical results from a large Swiss Canton to demonstrate this potential. Using a Gini-based redistribution effect decomposition, it is possible to gain a complete picture of the redistribution effects of the visible (tax rates) and hidden (tax deductions) fiscal instruments.

The meeting will take place on Tuesday March 26, 2019, Room 5799, Géopolis, UNIL, 12:15-13:30.

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Monday March 11^th from 12:15 to 13:15 in room 5899 at Geopolis.

Valérie-Anne Ryser and Marieke Heers will present their ongoing research project titled:

The relationship between early child-care types and parents’ subjective wellbeing and work family balance

Objective: This study investigates what child-care patterns – parental, formal, informal (mostly grandparental) and mixed care – parents of 0 to 4-years old children use and how these arrangements relate to different domains of parents’ subjective wellbeing (SWB) and work-family balance (WFB).

Background: Working parents rely on non-parental child-care to enable them managing the simultaneous demands of work and family. Yet, evidence on the relationship between child-care arrangements and parental outcomes is lacking. The Swiss case is particularly interesting for studying how early child-care relates to different domains of parents’ SWB and WFB, as child-care is limited in offer and costly.

Method: Based on 16 waves of the Swiss Household Panel, from 2002 to 2017, multilevel regression models were used to estimate the relationship between child-care types and parental SWB and WFB.

Results: Compared to grandparental child-care, the use of formal and mixed child-care modes is associated with decreased life satisfaction, while mixed child-care modes relate to increased levels of negative affect. Relying on relatives, institutions or mixed child-care modes relates to decreased levels of positive affect. Finally, mixed child-care modes are associated with higher difficulties to combine work and family.

Conclusion: Grandparental care is positively related to several dimensions of parents’ SWB and WFB. The flexibility and less rigid character of this child-care arrangement offer parents psychological relief and emotional support helping them maintaining a better overall quality of life.

Tuesday February 26, 2019, Room 5799, Géopolis, UNIL, 12:15-13:30

Pluralistic memories as a resource for conflict transformation? 

A mixed-methods approach

In societies affected by protracted conflicts, collective experiences of violence are typically complex and multi-layered. This complexity, however, can be hidden in public and mass-mediatized narratives, which often can be simplified, polarized or black-and-white versions of the actual events. For example, stories about events of ingroup perpetration or intergroup solidarity may circulate less in the public sphere, when they contradict the official narratives. However, even silenced or marginalized memories rarely disappear completely, but they can be confined to informal, private forms of preservation and sharing.

This talk addresses the role of knowledge and communication about complex conflict memories in the formation of beliefs about conflict-relevant policies. I will present a mixed-methods approach to the study of complexity in personal conflict memories, implemented in the conflict-ridden societies of Sri Lanka, Burundi, and Palestine as part of the Pluralistic Memories Project (http://wp.unil.ch/pmp/). This approach combines thematic analyses of personal testimonies with quantitative analyses of survey responses related to vignettes derived from these testimonies. Our findings suggest that in safe social spaces, people tend to express conflict narratives that are more multi-layered and complex than those available in public spaces. They further show that the possibility to know and communicate about complex conflict experiences with relevant others plays a pivotal role in the formation of beliefs and expectations about conflict-relevant policies in general and about transitional justice settings in particular.

Dr. Sandra Penic is an FNS Senior Research in the Life Course and Inequalities Research Centre, Institute of Social Sciences, UNIL.

Second Swiss Longitudinal Data Fair, February 14, 2019, University of Lausanne

This one-day event included presentations and posters on various major Swiss longitudinal surveys in the social sciences, including TREE, the Swiss Household Panel, SHARE, CoCon and the LABB of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office and the DAB panel study (Determinants of educational choice and vocational training opportunities). The presenations were followed by practical hands-on sessions in the afternoon.

Consult the list of surveys

Below, the posters and the presentations presented that day.

Posters

SHP

CoCon

SHARE
–Poster 1

–Poster 2

TREE

LABB

DAB panel study

LIVES Lolys (Longitudinal study on youth transition in various regional institutions)

LIVES Single parenthood

Zeppelin

Professional Paths Survey

Morning presentations

SLDF Opening

SHP

COCON

Share: check out this video: http://www.share-project.org/home0.html

TREE

LABB

DAB

Programme

For any information, contact Alexandra Stam at FORS.

La dernière conférence du GREC de ce semestr aura lieu jeudi le 13 décembre, 16h, Géopolis 2018.
Oliver Strijbis, de l’Université de Zürich, donnera une conférence sur le vote des immigrant-e-s :

Immigrants against immigration : Competition, identity and immigrants’ vote on free movement in Switzerland

Nous nous réjouissons de vous y retrouver ! Comme d’habitude, un apéro d’excellence sera servi après la présentation.

Au nom du GREC,

Gian-Andrea Monsch

**Abstract de la présentation :

Standard explanations of anti-immigrant sentiments as well as explanations of the voting behavior of ethnic minorities would both predict voters with an immigrant background should be less inclined to support anti-immigration policies than comparable natives. We show this was not the case in the Swiss referendum “against mass immigration” held in 2014. In this referendum voters with an immigrant background showed surprisingly high levels of support to the initiative to restrict immigration, which were comparable to those expressed by natives. To explain this puzzling finding, we propose to look at two alternative (but not mutually exclusive) drivers of policy preferences previously overlooked in the voting literature: ethnic boundary making and labor market competition. We show that accounting for Secondo identity (a boundary-making identity specific to the Swiss ethnic hierarchy) and exposure to occupational and geographical labor market competition can explain the puzzle of immigrants’ support for immigration restrictions.

The next presentation of the FORS-SSP Methods and Research Meetings will take place on Tuesday December 4, 2018 at 12.15-13:30, room 5799 at Geopolis.

Professor Daniel Gatica-Perez from the EPFL will give a talk entitled:

Mobile Crowdsensing and Public Participation

The engagement of youth in local concerns has educational, social, and economic implications. There is an entire open agenda of issues that human-centered computing research can contribute to. This spans data
collection, analytics, and visualization. I will discuss my group’s recent research on mobile crowdsourcing, which integrates youth participation, smartphone sensing, machine learning of mobile sensor and media, and inference of properties of both urban spaces and everyday life patterns. We aim to deepen our understanding of how mobile and social technology can support communities and other stakeholders engaged for social good. I will also discuss how these approaches could support other researchers for their own scientific goals.

We look forward to seeing you at our seminar!

The organizing committee

Jacques-Antoine Gauthier
Oliver Lipps
Caroline Roberts
Oriane Sarrasin

Le prochain FORS Lunch Seminar aura lieu le jeudi 29 novembre de 12h15 à 13h15 dans la salle 5408 de Géopolis.

Prof. Christian Maggiori et Prof. Castelli Dransart, de la Haute école de travail social de Fribourg (HES-SO), présenteront les résultats de leur étude intitulée :

Agisme et décisions de fin de vie : Quelle relation

Dans un contexte de vieillissement démographique et d’avancées médicales, les décisions relatives à la fin de vie prennent une importance grandissante et posent de nouveaux défis à différents niveaux de notre société. Plusieurs facteurs sont susceptibles d’intervenir sur ces décisions, dont l’âgisme.

La présentation discutera ainsi du possible impact des expériences d’âgisme (préjugés et discriminations perçus ou vécus par la personne âgée) sur les préférences et choix relatifs à différents traitements médicaux et aux décisions concernant la fin de vie à partir des résultats issus d’une étude exploratoire réalisée auprès de personnes âgées de 65 ans et plus vivant encore à domicile dans les Cantons de Fribourg, Vaud et Genève. En particulier, la présentation s’appuiera tant sur les informations issues d’interviews semi-structurés (15 entretiens avec des personnes âgées, dont 3 avec des couples) que sur les données récoltées à l’aide d’un questionnaire d’auto-évaluation (N = 100).