Conference Agenda

Many aspects of the cultural and structural fabric of societies are shaped by social scripts about the timing of life. Some of these scripts concern ideas about when, in what order, and in what combination people should experience major life transitions: leaving the parental home, starting a full-time job, becoming parents (after marriage or not), or retiring, or being employed as a parent to young children. When do young people become old enough to be considered ‘adults’ ? When are adults considered to be “old”? Such scripts help to organize people’s lives and reduce uncertainty about the future. People use them to evaluate progress in their and others’ lives, and lagging in achieving major milestones can affect individual and family well-being. The extent to which deviations from such scripts are acceptable tells us something about the level of tolerance in society. If a gap exists between these social expectations and opportunities to enact them, governments and citizens alike can foster actions to better align ideas and opportunities. In this sense, scripts are not only adapted in response to changing circumstances, but they can also be sources of social change. Scripts of life tend to differ for men and women, and these differences are fundamental in informing gender relations in societies; smaller differences in expectations about the timing of women’s and men’s lives suggest greater gender equality. Data collected in Round 3 (2006/07) and Round 9 (2018/19) of the ESS included a module on the timing of life (for topline results, Billari et al., 2021). Between these two time points, societies confronted important economic and institutional changes. The Great Recession, especially, profoundly influenced the lives of Europeans. Young people were hit hardest, making youth empowerment a key policy challenge. Adults were also affected, with labour market difficulties disrupting family choices, particularly for women, bringing pressing problems related to work-life balance and gender equality. The Great Recession, in combination with increased longevity, has fuelled debates about the sustainability of pension schemes and active ageing. How have Europeans’ ideas about the timing of life changed over these 12 years? This session aims to accommodate contributions on these issues based on these ESS modules. Billari, F.C., Badolato, L., Hagestad, G.O., Liefbroer, A.C., Settersten, R. A., Jr., Spéder, Z., & Van Bavel, J. (2021). The timing of life: Topline results from Round 9 of the ESS.

This session will showcase research that analyses ESS data, exclusively or alongside other sources, to map societal change and stability. This session will focus on the attitudes of and towards immigrants, national and European attachment and the contextual factors driving some political preferences.

Social policies increasingly focus on enhancing population wellbeing, and it is becoming more common to quantify the progress made toward greater human wellbeing and investigate its determinants using psychological variables such as life satisfaction, emotions, basic psychological needs, and feelings of meaning and purpose. Pioneering research from the fields of psychology and economics have concentrated on intra-individual (e.g., socio-economic or demographic) factors or the impact of the social environment (e.g., markers of social cohesion or socio-economic deprivation), while recent research from diverse fields, including sociology and geography also assess the effects of environmental contexts on wellbeing (e.g., the impact of ongoing climate change on wellbeing and mental health are already very noticeable in several ways). The European Social Survey has been at the forefront of measuring subjective wellbeing and is unique in offering data suitable to almost all disciplines and their differing perspectives on wellbeing. Since its inception, satisfaction and happiness questions and indicators of social wellbeing ("social capital") have been included in every wave of the survey. In addition, the ESS collected more in-depth psychological wellbeing reports in 2006 and 2012. For Round 12 (2025), a repeat of this more comprehensive personal and social wellbeing module is planned. We want to use the 2024 ESS conference as an opportunity to bring together academics from different fields to discuss the most recent research on personal and social wellbeing using ESS data and to explore the opportunities arising from the repeat module. We are interested in eliciting research that uses the ESS wellbeing data from various perspectives. For example, we are interested in research that makes use of the ability to link ESS data with economic and sociodemographic data (which may be at national and subnational scales), assess rural-urban differences in wellbeing, or research that uses detailed wellbeing measures in the ESS to answer psychological research questions (e.g., to develop wellbeing profiles). Of course, we equally welcome research that uses the ESS personal and social wellbeing module data in other innovative ways.

Chairs: Anja-Kristin Abendroth (Bielefeld University), Tanja van der Lippe (Utrecht University), Judith Treas (University of California Irvine) Information and communication technologies and the extension of digital infrastructures increasingly allow for digital social contacts in work and family life. Moreover, the global COVID-19 pandemic, with social distancing measures in place, increased the experiences with digital social contacts with colleagues and supervisors as well as family members. The implications for workplace flexibility in time, place and employment contract as well as family relationship quality are highly debated. An optimistic scenario foresees improved maintenance of existing relationships and improved flexible adaption of the work and family spheres. A more pessimistic perspective suggests that digital social contacts erode social capital, involve more precarious work contracts and/or result in a blurring of boundaries between work and family life fostering conflicts between the life domains. Empirical evidence, typically based on small-scale, single country studies, has yielded mixed findings, suggesting that social circumstances produce different effects. Opportunities-based arguments from research on the digital social divide point to differences in home and workplace access to digital communication and digital capacities from state investments in technology and skill development. Needs-based arguments refer to restrictions on face-to-face contact due to geographic distance, living arrangements, teleworking or long work hours--all differing between countries/regions depending on employment rates, welfare and labor protections, or family policies. Following trust-based arguments, the generalized trust, openness, and privacy policies of countries reflect privacy concerns limiting the use of digital communication and the digital exchange of support and appreciation. Influence-based arguments address individuals’ agency to limit the costs involved in digital communication, depending on country context and work or family cultures. The session on DSC invites contributions on the respective module on “Digital Social Contexts in Work and Family Life” in the ESS Round 10 on the following guiding questions: Does digital social contact in work and family life, its evaluation, and consequences differ between European countries and to what extent can these differences be explained by differences in digital infrastructures, national policies, demographic composition, and economic circumstances? Are there gender, parenthood, migration and class-specific patterns of digital social contacts in the spheres of work and family or their interfaces? How does digital social contact shape relationship quality, well-being, resources and demands in work, family and/or community as well as the intersection of these life spheres? Does digital social contact mitigate or reinforce gender or other social inequalities in the family or workforce?

Chairs: Anja-Kristin Abendroth (Bielefeld University), Tanja van der Lippe (Utrecht University), Judith Treas (University of California Irvine) Information and communication technologies and the extension of digital infrastructures increasingly allow for digital social contacts in work and family life. Moreover, the global COVID-19 pandemic, with social distancing measures in place, increased the experiences with digital social contacts with colleagues and supervisors as well as family members. The implications for workplace flexibility in time, place and employment contract as well as family relationship quality are highly debated. An optimistic scenario foresees improved maintenance of existing relationships and improved flexible adaption of the work and family spheres. A more pessimistic perspective suggests that digital social contacts erode social capital, involve more precarious work contracts and/or result in a blurring of boundaries between work and family life fostering conflicts between the life domains. Empirical evidence, typically based on small-scale, single country studies, has yielded mixed findings, suggesting that social circumstances produce different effects. Opportunities-based arguments from research on the digital social divide point to differences in home and workplace access to digital communication and digital capacities from state investments in technology and skill development. Needs-based arguments refer to restrictions on face-to-face contact due to geographic distance, living arrangements, teleworking or long work hours--all differing between countries/regions depending on employment rates, welfare and labor protections, or family policies. Following trust-based arguments, the generalized trust, openness, and privacy policies of countries reflect privacy concerns limiting the use of digital communication and the digital exchange of support and appreciation. Influence-based arguments address individuals’ agency to limit the costs involved in digital communication, depending on country context and work or family cultures. The session on DSC invites contributions on the respective module on “Digital Social Contexts in Work and Family Life” in the ESS Round 10 on the following guiding questions: Does digital social contact in work and family life, its evaluation, and consequences differ between European countries and to what extent can these differences be explained by differences in digital infrastructures, national policies, demographic composition, and economic circumstances? Are there gender, parenthood, migration and class-specific patterns of digital social contacts in the spheres of work and family or their interfaces? How does digital social contact shape relationship quality, well-being, resources and demands in work, family and/or community as well as the intersection of these life spheres? Does digital social contact mitigate or reinforce gender or other social inequalities in the family or workforce?

Since the last decade of the 20th century, as digital technologies began to spread, research on inequalities, social impacts and effects of the use of these technologies began to be developed. This has highlighted the great importance of research on digital transformation, which is concerned with the economic and social effects of integrating digital technologies into people's lives. The expansion these technologies has unevenly across society. The term digital divide was coined as early as the 1990s, to describe inequalities referred to the access and uptake of digital technologies. Differences in access to digital technologies is what was called the first digital divide, which later on, gave rise to other types of divides, such as the divide on digital skills. Likewise, digital technologies play a crucial role in numerous aspects of daily life, such as education, communication, leisure, or work. As a result, is of crucial importance to understand how these technologies are affecting individuals’ well-being given that the ultimate effect of the integration of technologies in all aspects of our lives would be in our well-being. At the same time, our society is also undergoing a green transition, and social concern about climate change is a central issue. In this sense, it is of particular interest to understand how this green transition is related to the digital transition and, at the same time, how individuals' environmental perceptions and concerns affect their levels of well-being. In this framework, this session welcomes proposals using the ESS and related to one of the following two research topics: (1) Digital inequalities and individuals (2) Digital transition and environmental perceptions (3) Environmental perceptions and well-being. Of particular interest for this session are proposals of cross-country analyses using the ESS Round 10 rotating module on "Digital social contact in work and family life", investigating the causes of inequalities in digital skills and their relationship to well-being. Also, proposals that try to shed light on how the use of digital technologies such as the internet affect people's well-being, using variables from the Media and social trust and Subjective well-being categories. Finally, proposals analyzing how people's environmental perceptions are related to and affect the digital transition and individuals' well-being, using variables on environmental perceptions, such as those included in Rounds 10 and 8. Proposals focusing on topics other than the above, but related to the digital transition, well-being or environmental perceptions, are also welcome.