Conference Agenda

In 1903 the German sociologist Georg Simmel delivered a lecture, in which he suggested that the residents of big cities would have to pay a hefty price of becoming lonely in order to gain their freedom and convenience in the cities. Simmel could not be so prescient to expect loneliness to become such an important issue 120 years later – the governments in the UK and Japan have set up a Ministry for Loneliness, the WHO has established a commission on loneliness, several charities are devoted themselves to tackling loneliness, and academic research has blossomed. Whether living in an urban area increases one’s chance to feel lonely remains an open question, however – the small number of studies so far have presented mixed or inconsistent results. Analysing the data collected from Round 7 (2014-15) of the European Social Survey (ESS) in 21 countries, this study explores the connection of living area and loneliness from different perspectives and with different research methods. First, it explores the connection at the country-level. Second, it presents the statistics that demonstrates a rather weak relationship across the participating nations and how the direction of relationship varies from nation to nation. The paper then asks whether living in big cities is necessary condition for feeling lonely and answers this question with necessary condition analysis. Finally, the study conducts mediation analysis with social participation as the mediator. All in all, the results point to a weak and varied relationship between living area and loneliness, thus depicting a more complicated picture than what Simmel initially portrayed.

Ostracism—being ignored and excluded—has received considerable attention in the past two decades, leading to many crucial insights. For instance, ostracism can lead not only to damaging psychological outcomes such as depression (Rudert et al., 2021) but also to dangerous societal problems such as increased extremism (Pfundmair et al., 2022). Surprisingly, very little is known about the prevalence of ostracism in the general population. However, few existing findings indicate that, for instance, individuals from certain socio-demographic groups experience ostracism more frequently (for example, young unemployed; Albath et al., 2023). In this project, we draw on data from the European Social Survey Round 10 as well as the ostracism module fielded in CRONOS-2 Wave 5 to systematically chart the mean frequency of ostracism across 11 European countries using Bayesian multilevel modeling. Specifically, we investigate five previously identified and pre-registered socio-demographic risk factors that may impact ostracism frequency: age, gender, education, income, and religion (religiosity and religious behavior). Further, we aim to uncover country-level effects. In line with previous research (e.g., Rudert et al., 2020), we find that ostracism decreases with age, β age = -0.30 (95% CI [-0.33, -0.26]). Further, our analyses show that lower household income is a risk factor for experiencing ostracism more frequently, β income = -0.13 (95% CI [-0.17, -0.10]). Finally, education, religiosity, and religious behavior show differences between certain group levels, however, the effects show no consistent pattern. Model diagnostics suggest good convergence (Rhat = 1) and adequate effective sample sizes (Bulk ESS [2645, 11317] and Tail ESS [3666, 7227]), ensuring the reliability of our posterior estimates. These findings provide a first systematic overview of ostracism frequency and allow us to build a more solid understanding of how often individuals are ostracized, and which basic demographics may put individuals at risk of experiencing ostracism more frequently. In the next step of the analysis, we will follow up on country effects. Given the specific social contexts in different countries (e.g., differing levels of transgenerational cohesion), we expect diverging effects of socio-demographic risk factors across countries.

Despite the large body of research on the relationship between well-being and crime, little attention has been paid to an important dimension of quality of life: social isolation. The determinants of social isolation should have higher priority among researchers given the social changes induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, including heightened fears among the public. Using data from the latest two waves of the European Social Survey, we strove to assess the relationship between social isolation and perceived unsafety across 17 European countries. The data suggest a cumulative effect of perceived unsafety and security value orientation on social isolation, as countries whose inhabitants emphasize the importance of security exhibit a stronger relationship between perceived unsafety and social isolation compared to countries with lower levels of security value orientation. On the other hand, the effect of time proved negligible, suggesting that the discourse of fear in society has not yet translated into the relationship between perceived unsafety and social isolation.

This research delves into the intricate dynamics of work-from-home (WFH) practices, socio-economic factors, and happiness within the European context, utilizing secondary data from the European Social Survey (ESS) spanning 2020 to 2022 with a sample of 37611 respondents. The study primarily focuses on how various socio-economic variables, such as education level, age, and marital status, influence the well-being of Europeans and the extent in remote work environments. The data was downloaded from https://ess.sikt.no/en/datafile/f37d014a-6958-42d4-b03b-17c29e481d3d/256?tab=1&elements=[%2252e83b68-7632-4847-96a5-3e9e2222ded9/5%22] in January 2024. Both Microsoft Office Excel 365 and the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS 28) were used to analyze the data after initial data cleaning and recoding of some uncoded variables. The analysis has shown various patterns, trends and statistically significant differences among the relevant variables. The United Kingdom, a previous member of the European Union, has a notably higher frequency of respondents working from home "Every day" (12.18%) and "Several times a week" (9.40%). France shows a relatively higher frequency of respondents working from home frequently (5.87% every day, 8.45% several times a week). In Bulgaria, the majority of respondents report "Not applicable" (46.28%) for work from home, with a significant portion never working from home (37.82%). Greece and Italy show similar patterns, with a high percentage of respondents indicating "Not applicable" and a considerable portion never working from home. Respondents who work from home "Several times a week" report the highest average happiness score (7.49). Those who work from home "Every day" also show a high level of happiness (7.45 on average). Respondents who "Never" work from home have a lower average happiness score (7.05) compared to those who work from home more frequently. The lowest happiness scores are observed among respondents who did not answer (5.98) or refused to answer (6.54) the question about work from home frequency. A key finding is the prominent lead of Nordic and Central European countries in terms of average happiness scores, with Finland notably at the forefront. The analysis further shows that work-from-home frequency is higher among males, younger age groups, and individuals with higher education levels, while varying significantly across different marital statuses. The analysis can have implications on digital transformation in the work life setting in Europe and abroad.