Gleichwertige Lebensumstände sind das erklärte Ziel föderaler Politik in Deutschland. Dennoch gibt es Differenzen in den Lebensbedingungen und den darauf bezogenen Einschätzungen der Menschen. Seit 1990 wurde dies besonders durch den gern benutzten Ost-West Vergleich sichtbar. Doch nicht nur...

In diesem Beitrag* werden Verbreitung, Bedingungen und Folgen von Korruption in Bewerberstaaten für einen Beitritt zur Europäischen Union in doppelter Vergleichsperspektive untersucht. Die Beitrittskandidaten werden einerseits westeuropäischen EU-Mitgliedsstaaten gegenübergestellt,...

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrages stehen Analysen zur Verbreitung der privaten Altersvorsorge, zur Vorsorgebereitschaft und zur erwarteten Absicherung im Alter. Die vorliegende Studie basiert auf zwei repräsentativen Bevölkerungsbefragungen: den Wohlfahrtssurveys der Jahre 1998 und 2001. Die...

This paper identifies six main theories of the determinants of social trust, and tests them against survey data from seven nations, 1999-2001. Three of the six theories of trust fare rather poorly and three do better. First and foremost, social trust tends to be high among citizens who believe...

The issue of social exclusion, currently of particular concern to policy makers in Brussels, is a manifestation of new aspects of social inequality that are supposed to go along with persistent high unemployment rates and increasing poverty affection. The concept provides a multidimensional and...

This paper deals with the problems of social acceptance and social support of the welfare state. It starts with a brief presentation of approaches which infer in an immediate way from the self-interest of the citizens as welfare beneficiaries (‘beneficial involvement’) to the question of...

As Europe is growing together politically and economically, the international perspective is becoming more and more important in social reporting and welfare research. Are there strong differences in the objective living conditions and the subjective well-being between European nations? Do the...

There are many qualms about subjective indicators, and some people believe that social policy should better not use them. This paper consists of a review of these objections. It is argued that policy makers need subjective indicators for the following reasons: 1. Social policy is never limited...

The assumption that today.s society is polarised, is a very popular one in the current public and scientific debate. Access to the labour market is referred to as the main characteristic, which decides whether someone is .inside. or .outside.. Lots of theoretical and conceptual efforts have been...

There are a number of significant social cleavages and political conflicts within the population of the European postsocialist societies. The first one concerns the cleavage between the decreasing number of people who benefited from the “Ancien régime” and those who took advantage of the...