Do interactions cancel associations of subjective well-being with individual-level socioeconomic characteristics? An exploratory analysis using the European Social Survey

Using the European Social Survey (2002–2014, 16 countries, N = 146,579), I examine whether significant associations between self-reported subjective well-being (SWB) and thirteen individual-level socioeconomic characteristics still hold in specific population sub-groups. The determinants are age, gender, children at home, education, work status, religiosity, political orientation, trust towards the parliament and the legal system, meeting friends, marital status, health and finances. Based on each characteristic’s values, I divide the sample into sub-groups and run separate regressions. Compared to regressions using the whole sample, only six of the aforementioned characteristics maintain the same association with SWB. For age, gender, children at home, education, religiosity and trust the previous associations with SWB now disappear. These results contradict prior theoretical and empirical findings.</p

Evaluating project deadweight measures: evidence from Finnish business subsidies

An important problem in measuring the impacts of business subsidies is their separation from deadweight, which refers to changes that would have occurred even in the absence of intervention. Both public and private assessments have been used previously to study deadweight, but so far little is known about how they correspond to each other. To address this issue, we conducted a joint evaluation of the private and public assessments of deadweight for Finnish business projects. A unique data set combines large register data with both public and private information on projects financed in 2000–2003. First, our results suggest that the different measures for deadweight are greatly uncorrelated, and thus cannot be used as substitutes. Second, characteristics affecting the public and private measures of deadweight are identified using ordered probit models. We find that the public and private sectors emphasize different factors in their assessment of deadweight. Third, an upper bound for the level of deadweight spending is estimated at 73.8%.peerReviewe

Workplace bullying and gender: an overview of empirical findings

The aim of this chapter is to summarize existing research on workplace bullying and gender and examine the many ways in which gender may impact the bullying process. First, it seeks to provide an overview of empirical findings on gender differences in bullying and, second, theoretical explanations for the differences. In terms of prevalence rates, this summary suggests somewhat higher rates for women, although there are regional differences. The chapter reports complex relationships between gender on the one hand and forms of bullying, perpetrations of bullying, consequences of and responses to bullying and interventions in bullying on the other hand. Gender non-conforming behaviour of both men and women as well as being in the minority are recognized as specific risk factors. Yet gender as a social category does not stand in isolation but may intersect and interact with other social categories, creating unique and different experiences for different employee groups. The chapter recognizes gender as a fundamental ordering principle in society and organizations, although many of the empirical studies surveyed still take a gender-as-variable approach instead of explicitly analysing the gendered contexts in which these encounters take place. The overview shows that relationships between gender and bullying are complex and largely shaped by social power afforded to different groups of men and women and by gendered expectations of appropriate behaviour