Job Preferences in Comparative Perspective 1989-2015: A Multidimensional Evaluation of Individual and Contextual Influences

This article aims to provide a comparative assessment of work values across countries as well as over time. Differences and similarities in job preferences for eight central value dimensions are examined across nineteen countries between 1989 and 2015, made possible by four survey rounds from the International Social Survey, Work Orientation modules. Analyses of how extrinsic and intrinsic work values are related to individual and contextual factors are guided by contrasting theoretical approaches - modernization theory and a welfare-state institutional perspective. Four main results are reported. First, secure and interesting jobs are the most preferred job qualities, universally important to nearly all employees throughout all survey years. Second, values are markedly stable over time, but vary more across countries. Third, large majorities simultaneously value work autonomy, high income, advancement opportunities, jobs perceived as useful to society or helpful to others, indicating how individuals generally, are both intrinsically and extrinsically oriented toward work, with some gendered differences. Fourth partly in support of welfare-state institutional expectations, work values differ across countries mostly in relation to economic equality rather than economic development, so that both extrinsic and intrinsic work values are more important in more unequal societies

Additional services for Journal of Public Policy: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Institutional trust and welfare state support: on the role of trust in market institutions Insti

Abstract : The importance of institutional trust for structuring welfare state support (WSS) has been advanced by several scholars. Yet, the thesis has not received convincing empirical support. We argue that the weak evidence observed by previous research is caused by the failure of not extending the analytical framework beyond the study of public institutions. Using Sweden as a test case, our analytical framework covers trust in public institutions (TPI) and market institutions (TMI). The main findings are: (1) TMI has a robust negative effect on WSS; (2) the expected relationship between TPI and WSS is strengthened controlling for TMI; (3) TMI mediates the relationships between socio-economic variables and WSS. These findings underline the importance of bringing in other institutional configurations that are seen as conceivable alternatives to the state for administrating social welfare, not the least in studies primarily interested in the link between TPI and support for state-organised welfare

Viral Antigen and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Cerebrospinal Fluid in Patients With COVID-19 Infection and Neurologic Symptoms Compared With Control Participants Without Infection or Neurologic Symptoms

Importance: Neurologic symptoms are common in COVID-19, but the central nervous system (CNS) pathogenesis is unclear, and viral RNA is rarely detected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). / Objective: To measure viral antigen and inflammatory biomarkers in CSF in relation to neurologic symptoms and disease severity. Design, Setting, and / Participants: This cross-sectional study was performed from March 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, in patients 18 years or older who were admitted to Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden, with COVID-19. All patients had CSF samples taken because of neurologic symptoms or within a study protocol. Healthy volunteer and prepandemic control groups were included. / Exposure: SARS-CoV-2 infection. / Main Outcomes and Measures: Outcomes included CSF SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antigen (N-Ag) using an ultrasensitive antigen capture immunoassay platform and CSF biomarkers of immune activation (neopterin, β2-microglobulin, and cytokines) and neuronal injury (neurofilament light protein [NfL]). / Results: Forty-four patients (median [IQR] age, 57 [48-69] years; 30 [68%] male; 26 with moderate COVID-19 and 18 with severe COVID-19 based on the World Health Organization Clinical Progression Scale), 10 healthy controls (median [IQR] age, 58 [54-60] years; 5 [50%] male), and 41 patient controls (COVID negative without evidence of CNS infection) (median [IQR] age, 59 [49-70] years; 19 [46%] male) were included in the study. Twenty-one patients were neuroasymptomatic and 23 were neurosymptomatic (21 with encephalopathy). In 31 of 35 patients for whom data were available (89%), CSF N-Ag was detected; viral RNA test results were negative in all. Nucleocapsid antigen was significantly correlated with CSF neopterin (r = 0.38; P = .03) and interferon γ (r = 0.42; P = .01). No differences in CSF N-Ag concentrations were found between patient groups. Patients had markedly increased CSF neopterin, β2-microglobulin, interleukin (IL) 2, IL-6, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor α compared with controls. Neurosymptomatic patients had significantly higher median (IQR) CSF interferon γ (86 [47-172] vs 21 [17-81] fg/mL; P = .03) and had a significantly higher inflammatory biomarker profile using principal component analysis compared with neuroasymptomatic patients (0.54; 95% CI, 0.03-1.05; P = .04). Age-adjusted median (IQR) CSF NfL concentrations were higher in patients compared with controls (960 [673-1307] vs 618 [489-786] ng/L; P = .002). No differences were seen in any CSF biomarkers in moderate compared with severe disease. / Conclusions and Relevance: In this study of Swedish adults with COVID-19 infection and neurologic symptoms, compared with control participants, viral antigen was detectable in CSF and correlated with CNS immune activation. Patients with COVID-19 had signs of neuroaxonal injury, and neurosymptomatic patients had a more marked inflammatory profile that could not be attributed to differences in COVID-19 severity. These results highlight the clinical relevance of neurologic symptoms and suggest that viral components can contribute to CNS immune responses without direct viral invasion

The ISSP 2016 Role of Government Module : Content, Coverage, and History

The Role of Government (ROG) module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a unique high-quality data source for comparative research on political attitudes and orientations. This article describes the content, coverage, and history of the ISSP 2016 ROG module, which was fielded in 35 countries. The module has been fielded five times since its inception in 1985, and a majority of the items in the 2016 module are replicated from previous waves to facilitate comparisons over time. In addition, a substantial number of new items are included to cover pertinent issues not previously addressed by the ISSP. Topics include (but are not restricted to) civil liberties; national security and challenges; state intervention in the economy; government taxation, spending, redistribution, and responsibilities; political trust and efficacy; corruption and institutional trust; and government responsiveness. This new wave of the module gauges political opinion at a moment in history characterized by substantial political turmoil and change in many countries. At the same time, this fifth wave strengthens the analytical capacity of the module for charting longitudinal developments both within and across countries. Overall, this makes the ISSP ROG module an attractive platform for asking new questions that can further the mutual development of theory and empirical analysis in comparative research

Popular Support for Public Education in Global Perspective

Education is a catalyst for social and economic development for both individuals and society. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of levels of popular support for public education in a global perspective. While for long a largely neglected research topic, scholars have recently started to pay attention to public preferences concerning education policy. Previous research is however mostly restricted to highly developed economies. At present we thus do not know whether the findings and conclusions from earlier studies are applicable to countries at other stages of human and economic development, or whether attitudes perhaps are markedly different in other country contexts. In this paper, we aim to take a first step to fill this knowledge gap by exploring attitudes towards education policy in 35 countries, using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). Our empirical results show that support for public education (in terms of both spending and provision) is solid in both developed and developing economies. While we find that support for public providers of education is slightly higher in developed economies, support for increased public spending on education is higher in developing economies. The overarching longitudinal trend is one of considerable stability, although there is a substantial change in attitudes over time in some countries. At the individual level, we find that political ideology is more important in structuring attitudes than demographic factors. Although both the socioeconomic and the sociocultural dimensions of political ideology are important, we find that support for public education correlates more consistently with sociocultural than socioeconomic ideology. We conclude that extending theoretical inquiry and data collection to lower-income countries is one of the most urgent tasks for future research