The Long-term Development of Socio-spatial Differentiation in Socialist and Post-socialist Prague

Author(s): Petra Špačková,Lucie Pospíšilová,Martin Ouředníček / Language(s): English Issue: 06/2016

The article examines how different social and urban processes were reflected in the spatial patterns of three dimensions of population structure (demographic, socio-economic, and ethnic statuses) in Prague during the socialist and post-socialist periods. The article has three main objectives. First, it analyses inertia and change in socio-spatial patterns and evaluates the processes that have influenced them. Second, it investigates how the importance of all three statuses in the spatial differentiation of urban space has evolved. Third, the article focuses on the level of geographical variability as recorded within different spatial scales, and the development of this variability. It examines selected indicators of socio-economic, demographic, and ethnic statuses by employing detailed statistical data on the level of basic settlement units from the Population Censuses held in 1970, 1991, and 2011. The results confirm that the most significant changes in socio-spatial patterns between socialism and post-socialism can be observed for ethnic spatial differentiation. In addition, the city witnessed considerable changes in demographic spatial patterns in both periods, while socio-economic spatial patterns have remained relatively stable. New socio-spatial processes driven predominantly by movements of young and better-off populations have taken place in previously less attractive neighbourhoods. As a result, very different populations often live side-by-side in contemporary Prague.

Max Haller and Anja Eder: Ethnic Stratification and Economic Inequality around the World: The End of Exploitation and Exclusion?

Author(s): Ryan Finnigan / Language(s): English Issue: 06/2016

Vnitřní periferie v Česku: Multidimenzionalita sociálního vyloučení ve venkovských oblastech

Author(s): Josef Bernard,Martin Šimon / Language(s): Czech Issue: 01/2017

The spatial concentration of social disadvantage in rural areas not only poses a risk to social cohesion but also represents a challenge for public policy. This article draws on a multidimensional concept of disadvantage to study spatial aspects of disadvantage in Czech rural areas. Current studies aimed at identifying ‘inner peripheries’ as areas with an increased risk of social exclusion fail to distinguish between different forms of disadvantage. Their methodological approach blends regions struggling with various problems into one category. Contesting the one-dimensionality of peripheries, this article presents an alternative approach that allows the delimitation of multiple types of peripheral areas based on four separate dimensions of disadvantage. It is possible then to distinguish: peripheries characterised by low qualifications, lower living standards, and the absence of a middle class; peripheries with an increased risk of social exclusion; peripheries with poor accessibility; and peripheries facing demographic challenges. Differences in the spatial patterns of the four types of peripheries indicate that different sociospatial processes contribute to the emergence of different types of peripheries and this calls for varied public policy tools and measures.

Emigration from the Perspective of the School-to-Work Transition in Bulgaria

Author(s): Rumiana Stoilova,Elitsa Dimitrova / Language(s): English Issue: 06/2017

The aim of this article is to analyse the extent to which differences between young people’s education, employment status, and social background can explain the differences in their emigration intentions and actual experience with emigration. The goal is to create a profile of youth with emigration experience and examine the interrelation between two transitions, from education to work and from youth into adulthood, as measured by the degree of independence from parents, and also to investigate social inequalities among people with emigration experience in the transition from education to finding a first job. The analysis is based on theories of the individual life-course transition and social status theories. The empirical data were gathered from a representative survey conducted in Bulgaria in 2014 that focused on young people aged 15–34 who had left education within the previous five years. The results show that young people from large families with many siblings more often have emigration intentions and that previous emigration experience is the strongest predictor of emigration intentions. Emigration intensions are also more likely among people who have emigrated and later returned and ended up economically inactive. This fact is important in understanding the large number of young people who are not in education or employment (NEETs) in Bulgaria.

Niepełnosprawność a wykluczenie społeczne w okresie przemian ustrojowych w Polsce po 1989 roku

Author(s): Izabela Szymczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

Disability is perceived as health and psychological problems, but also as difficulties with functioning within the society. The last example is very important from a sociological point of view because it has impact on everyday life and social roles. The literature shows how most people perceive the disabled. This kind of perception takes a certain shape due to widespread stereotypes. Such attitudes may ofted lead to the isolation of the “different” ones. This article presents mechanisms of social exclusion which were developed in Poland during the transformation period after 1989, with illustrative examples of people with disabilities.

Quality of life as an indicator of public management performance in the Republic of Kazakhstan

Author(s): Aibota Rakhmetova,Yeraly Budeshov / Language(s): English Issue: 7-8/2020

We examine quality of life issues in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Based on systematization of theoretical approaches to the definition of a concept and structure of living standards found in scientific literature and their critical analysis, we have identified and justified the fundamental structural blocks of the quality of life as a complex aggregate indicator reflecting the level of development of many areas of a modern person’s life together affecting the degree of his or her life activity’s efficiency. Using an extensive range of statistical data and tools of economic and mathematical modeling, we aim to identify the degree of influence of macroeconomic indicators that characterize certain areas of human life (healthcare, education, living conditions, security, income level, etc.) on living standards. Given the above, the central hypothesis of this study is that public management of the quality of life in the Republic of Kazakhstan can be more effective if it provides a scientifically grounded system of tools based on the assessment of the quality of life which takes into account both regional and industry specifics, feedback from the population as a recipient of public services, and is based on the principle of integration and consistency of state body management decisions.Results we have obtained imply the existence of a correlation between such quantitative indicators as natural growth, a number of pension recipients, the Gini coefficient and the quality of life index determined by qualitative indicators: general life satisfaction of the population and the level of perception of happiness. Results of the study confirm current trends in the socio-economic development of Kazakhstan, characterized by income inequality issues in both intersectoral and interregional sections, aggravated against the background of the global pandemic threat, the recession of a prolonged nature, and other external shocks and challenges. Based on the results obtained, the authors conclude that the key causes of socio-economic differentiation in Kazakhstan are associated with a weak institutional environment and weak performance of formal institutions. The quality of institutions impacts the process of socio-economic development in a creative way, including through the formation of an appropriate institutional environment regulating the entire set of socio-economic relations. This circumstance emphasizes the priority of challenges state management bodies face in the context of improving the existing institutional environment, which allows determination of rational behavior boundaries for people and economic entities to optimize and stabilize the socio-economic development of the state as a whole.We have developed and proposed a number of suggestions and recommendations for improving the existing institutional environment and the system of state management, practical implementation of which should reduce the existing large gap in income levels as the main factor of living standards in Kazakhstan.

Eradicating tribal poverty by providing self employment education - a case study of tribal people of Chamrajnagar district, Karnataka state in India

Author(s): Chikkaranga Swamy, / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

This article is supported by the grant no. GAČR 402/09/0662 Decision-making processes in autonomous systems of the Czech Science Foundation. The poverty in India has been one of the major issues of development in India. In the welfare state, one of the primary agenda in front of the state is to provide Self Employment Education to its people.The agenda becomes more prominent in a country like India having high density population with cropping pattern mostly dependent on rain which is regularly fluctuating the periods and cause uncertainties. The economy of India ispredominantly agrarian with more than 70 percent of its population living in villages and depending on agricultureand allied activities for their livelihood hence there in need to incorporate Self Employment Education. People aredying due to hunger. Self-employment education is provide appropriate will help in eradicating poverty as is the objective of the present paper. In Chamrajnagar district the living conditions of tribal people is in not satisfactory. The district has tribal population of 40, 260 live in 148 tribal audis (villages) according to 2001 census. Soliga (one of the tribe’s name) is the major tribal group who dwell in forest. There is no proper infrastructure in terms of housing,potable water, transportation and communication. Also these people are not getting proper facilities from the government to bring them to mainstream of development. Due to this people of this region are living in a very miserable condition. The tribal people collect honey, gum, medicinal plants and several other forest products but they do not have any provision preserve or storing. Hence by providing necessary Self Employment Education the tribal poverty can be eradicated to certain extent. The main focus of this paper is to bring the tribal people to main streamso as to make them socially and economically sustain themselves through Self Employment Education.

Liliana Moldovan, Eroii imposibilului: Poveştile de succes ale unor persoane cu dizabilităţi din România şi din străinătate, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Ecou Transilvan, 2016, 174 p., foto.

Author(s): Doina Gabriela Vanca / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14-15/2016

Liliana Moldovan, Eroii imposibilului: Poveştile de succes ale unor persoane cu dizabilităţi din România şi din străinătate = Heroes of the Impossible: Successful Stories of People with Disabilities from Romania and from Abroad, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Ecou Transilvan, 2016, 174 p., foto.

Assessing Socioeconomic Inequality in Self-Rated Health in Four ex-Yugoslav Countries: Does Social Capital Play a Role?

Author(s): Luka Jurković / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

There has been a growing academic interest in explaining the well-established association between socioeconomic status and health. Among the various proposed mechanisms and pathways, social capital has been recognised as a potentially important antecedent of socioeconomic inequalities in health. However, these interrelationships remain relatively unexplored within the countries of former Yugoslavia. Therefore, this article aims to fill the gap in the literature by exploring the role of individual-level social capital in the relationship between socioeconomic status and self-rated health in four ex-Yugoslav countries. The present study is based on the data from the ninth round of the European Social Survey (2018). The author analysed the data of participants aged 25 and over from Croatia (N = 1534), Montenegro (N = 1002), Serbia (N = 1720) and Slovenia (N = 1149). In order to test the target associations, sequential multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed. The results show that occupational social class and several social capital indicators are associated with self-rated health, although independently of each other. Across all countries, unskilled and skilled manual workers and long-term unemployed individuals were more likely to report poor health compared to non-manual workers, with the exception of Montenegrin skilled manual workers and the long-term unemployed participants from Slovenia. Moreover, despite some cross-country differences in the relationship between individual levels of social capital and self-rated health, social participation was associated with self-rated health across all countries. These findings highlight the importance of encouraging social participation within these countries, which can lead to health benefits through behavioural and psychosocial mechanisms.There has been a growing academic interest in explaining the well-established association between socioeconomic status and health. Among the various proposed mechanisms and pathways, social capital has been recognised as a potentially important antecedent of socioeconomic inequalities in health. However, these interrelationships remain relatively unexplored within the countries of former Yugoslavia. Therefore, this article aims to fill the gap in the literature by exploring the role of individual-level social capital in the relationship between socioeconomic status and self-rated health in four ex-Yugoslav countries. The present study is based on the data from the ninth round of the European Social Survey (2018). The author analysed the data of participants aged 25 and over from Croatia (N = 1534), Montenegro (N = 1002), Serbia (N = 1720) and Slovenia (N = 1149). In order to test the target associations, sequential multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed. The results show that occupational social class and several social capital indicators are associated with self-rated health, although independently of each other. Across all countries, unskilled and skilled manual workers and long-term unemployed individuals were more likely to report poor health compared to non-manual workers, with the exception of Montenegrin skilled manual workers and the long-term unemployed participants from Slovenia. Moreover, despite some cross-country differences in the relationship between individual levels of social capital and self-rated health, social participation was associated with self-rated health across all countries. These findings highlight the importance of encouraging social participation within these countries, which can lead to health benefits through behavioural and psychosocial mechanisms.

The Wealth Gap between Ageing Immigrants and Native-Born in Ten European Countries

Author(s): Moshe Semyonov,Noah Lewin-Epstein / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2021

Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe from 10 European countries, this study contributes to the research on immigrants' economic incorporation by focusing on the nativity wealth gaps in mid and late life. Three origin groups of immigrants were distinguished: non-European, post-communist, and West, Central, and South European countries. We estimated the size of the wealth gap between each immigrant population and natives, the sources of the gap, and the trajectory of wealth convergence. The data revealed that the mean net worth of native-born groups was higher than that of all immigrant sub-groups. The gap was widest for non-European immigrants and lowest for West, Central, and South European immigrants. Differences in the rate of homeownership accounted for the largest portion of the gap, while neither differential levels of income nor education accounted for much of the gap between native-born and either non-European immigrants or immigrants from post-communist countries. Reception of gifts or inheritances did not account for a meaningful portion of the gaps. Estimation of the rate of convergence suggests that it would take an average of 85 years after arrival for an average immigrant household to bridge the wealth gap between it and an average native-born household. The rate of wealth convergence was somewhat faster for non-Europeans and slower for West, Central, and South Europeans.

Pomiędzy piętnem a potencjałem - badania w działaniu (action research) w społeczności dotkniętej wykluczeniem we Wrocławiu

Author(s): Hanna Achremowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36-37/2020

The aim of the article is to present the results of pedagogical action research in social excluded society - residents of social hotel in Wrocław. Area of research concentrated on needs and potentials of the residents. The research was conducted according to the action research methodology and had three stages. Conclusions of the research pointed out that the community was touched by a stigma, which was a result of living in a social hotel. Residents felt a lack of security and recognition. The results of the research was the diagnosis of the residents’ potentials, such as neighborhood, subsidiarity and the ability to create a home-like atmosphere in highly degraded conditions. The research was accompanied by animation activities. They were based on the idea of empowerment, showing the hotel residents’ ability to act and organize.

Informal Family Carers’ Need for State-Guaranteed Support. What are the Implications for Social Policy?

Author(s): Laimutė Žalimienė,Jolita Junevičienė / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The article uses an interpretive and qualitative framework to analyze elderly care policy with a focus on the instrumental effectiveness of this policy. The framework of the research offers an understanding of informal carers needs for formal support at the level of social policy measures. The micro-level inquiry, i.e., interviews with informal elderly carers, both revealing caregiver burden and evaluating their need for formal (social policy) support, is demonstrating how qualitative inquiry can inform about shortages of this policy. The findings of the research suggest that formal support for informal caregivers in Lithuania is not adequate to their multifaceted care burden and should be therefore developed to encompass both direct and indirect support measures for informal carers.

“It will be difficult for you to move on from this…” An Autoethnographic Study of Hitting the Glass Ceiling in an Academic Recruitment Process

Author(s): Aida Alvinius / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

This narrative is an autoethnographic study of how discrimination and prejudice counteract the academic meritocratic system. In Sweden, which is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, opposition to gender equality and prejudices against what is considered the Other can be hidden and thus reproduced in decision-making processes and structures. This narrative shows how a professorial recruitment process bypassed the meritocratic system i.e., the system in which qualifications and educational results in combination with the individual’s achievements should play the greatest role in the promotion process. This is a story about how the supposed meritocracy is twisted and manipulated within university contexts and how the “temperament” of a foreign female researcher is utilised to exclude her from entering through the coveted doors of academic departments. Different experiences, characterised by demanding conditions, have been analysed with the help of gender theoretical perspectives, opposition to gender equality, intercultural perspectives and a number of social psychological perspectives linked to prejudice. The description is interwoven with previous experiences from younger years, which together contribute to an increased understanding of the individual narrative and its specific context.

PROFESYONEL MUTFAK ÇALIŞANLARININ CAM TAVAN SENDROMU ALGILARI ve DENEYİMLERİ ÜZERİNE BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Author(s): Esra BOZTEPE / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 55/2022

The impressive increase in the active participation of female employees in business life around the world can be accepted as a result of the changes and developments in the cultural and economic structure. When considered in terms of women's participation in business life, business life for women contains many gains and obstacles. The rise of women, whose active participation in business life has increased in recent years, to management levels is not at the same rate. This is due to many reasons, but research shows that women are not promoted to senior positions due to the invisible glass ceiling effect. The glass ceiling characterizes the invisible and artificial barriers that prevent women from moving up the corporate ladder to managerial and managerial positions, ignoring their success and merit. In our study, the concept of female workforce, glass ceiling syndrome and its characteristics were examined theoretically and 51 professionals who were members of the Sakarya Cooks and Pastry Association were interviewed. Ardahan University Academic Ethics Committee permission was obtained for the study. The results obtained through the semi-structured interview form created through Google Forms due to the pandemic conditions were examined with the phenomenological analysis method. According to the results obtained, the perceptions and attitudes of female and male employees towards the glass ceiling syndrome were evaluated and some suggestions were made to overcome these obstacles by revealing the obstacles that women face in business life.

Educational mobility at the top and the bottom of the social structure in Hungary

Author(s): Ákos Huszár,Karolina Balogh,Ágnes Gyõri / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

According to recent studies, both absolute and relative mobility in Hungary have recently declined. In our paper, we seek to explain how these processes evolved in the lower and upper segments of the social structure. Is the decline in mobility more due to the fact that parents in a more favourable position manage to pass on their privileged social position successfully, or rather to the fact that those starting from below are less able to overcome their disadvantages? To what extent have these processes occurred simultaneously in the last almost twenty years, and to what extent have they taken place independently? According to our results, the decrease in social mobility can be detected in both the lower and upper segments of society. However, processes at the two poles have not involved the same dynamics over the past nearly two decades. In the 2000s, educational expansion fuelled immobility in the upper segment of society, but also created mobility channels for those with an unfavourable social background. In contrast, in the 2010s the proportion of the immobile increased among both the high and low educated. In terms of relative mobility, quite similar processes have taken place in the upper and lower segments of society: the already unequal relative mobility chances became even more unequal during the nearly twenty years under study.

Support for reducing inequality in the new Russia

Author(s): Svetlana Mareeva,Ekaterina Slobodenyuk,Vasiliy Anikin / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This paper addresses the issue of the interrelation between different types of social mobility and support for reducing income inequality in contemporary Russia. Drawing from the Russian subsets of the International Social Survey Programme’s (ISSP) surveys, we estimate how this support is differentiated across experienced and expected subjective mobility. Official statistics and empirical survey data widely confirm that the large-scale socioeconomic changes that took place in Russia during the 2000s brought an increase in living standards for most population groups and a more-than-twofold reduction in poverty. However, according to the ISSP data, demand for the government to reduce income differences is at its highest level since 1992. More than 90 per cent of Russians unequivocally perceive income gaps in the country as too high (the same as in the late 1990s) and unfair. We test the effects of actual and expected mobility, showing that, in contrast to the literature, including earlier studies on Russia, past mobility and expected medium-term mobility do not have any significant effect on levels of support for reducing income differences, and only the effect of short-term expectations can be seen. We argue that the effect of social mobility in Russia is limited by a widespread consensus across the population that preexisting inequalities in Russia are too high and unfair – a viewpoint based mostly not on the specifics of individual situations, including experienced or expected mobility, but on shared subjective norms and beliefs about inequality and their contrast with existing reality.

Book review: Class Cultures in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe

Author(s): Tamara Trošt / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Review of : Class Cultures in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe by Dražen Cepić, 2020, Routledge

Changes in the ways of using plots in allotment gardens in Poland. A case of selected gardens in the Łódź Voivodship

Author(s): Roman Szkup / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

The article attempts to check whether there is spatial regularity in the relationship between the model of agricultural and productive use of allotment gardens and the leisure and recreational model. The article also presents socio-demographic features of users nowadays defining the use of plots in gardens. The objectives were achieved by means of a direct inventory and a questionnaire survey conducted among users of five gardens: one located in Łódź and four located in the western part of the suburban zone of Łódź. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the farther from the center of Łódź, the less dominant the leisure and recreational model was. In addition, it was found that the users’ professional activity and age are the sociodemographic features which today determine the way of using plots in gardens.

Asteroid-Effect in Society: The Formation of a Mannheim-type Historical Generation Post-COVID-19

Author(s): Andrea Szabó,ANDRÁS DÉRI / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

Our conceptual paper argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has created conditions for the constitution of a new historical generation in Mannheimian terms. Current attempts in the sociology of youth to reconcile structure and agency with the concept of generation provide good starting points for interpreting a historical event such as the COVID-19 pandemic. While generations are not to be understood as homogeneous groups, constituting events can be compared to an asteroid that changes the trajectory of each social group. Thus, the concept of asteroid-effect helps us to overcome oversimplifying generational interpretations and to examine the effects of generation-forming events with an eye on structural inequalities. Our study provides an overview of the classical generational theory of Mannheim in light of some contemporary approaches. Based upon existing information, we illustrate how the generation-forming events can be interpreted and how structural inequalities can be considered.

Learning from Erving Goffman: Understanding the experiences of “mixed” individuals in Switzerland and Morocco as a stigma management

Author(s): Gwendolyn Gilliéron / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

Although mixed origin is experienced as a resource by binational individuals, in some situations it can become a stigma. Through processes of othering, “mixed”, individuals experience a sort of stigmatization. It is a specific manifestation of stigma that develops its importance in connection with discourses and social lines of difference. Mixedness does not per se always lead to a stigma, but can become relevant in the intersection with race, ethnicity, class, gender, language, or religious affiliation and social hierarchies. The social contexts and their orders of belonging thus shape the stigma experiences of “mixed” individuals and, concomitantly, their opportunities. Based on my recent study on “mixed” individuals in Switzerland and Morocco, this article discusses how mixedness can turn into a stigma and how “mixed” individuals manage and resist these stigmatizations. I argue that mixedness can become an experience of stigmatization when processes of othering lead to the painful experience of non-belonging. This experience of discomfort stimulates continual negotiations between social perception and self-perception. In the article four varieties of stigma-management are developed: (1) attempting to unify the different origins, (2) developing an expert attitude, (3) looking for alternative spaces of belonging, (4) normalizing the “mixed” origin. The four types describe what I call subjective balances: the individual way of dealing with stigmatization, that is, with the problem that multiple belonging is not socially recognised.