Mens & Maatschappij - Volume 86, Issue 2, 2011

Going back, or not? Determinants of return intentions and return attitudes among asylum migrants who have exhausted all legal remedies .

Asylum migrants who have exhausted all legal remedies are expected to return to their country of origin. This study, in which 108 respondents participated, attempts to explain why some migrants intend to return, while others opt for illegal residence or onward migration. The relatively low degree of voluntary return among asylum migrants is primarily attributable to concerns about their safety in the country of origin, and to health problems. These findings confirm qualitative studies, and suggest furthermore that insights about return among labour migrants are of limited use to understand return among asylum migrants.

Cross-national variation in the educational health gap explained by governmental health expenditure and labour market characteristics.

Previous research shows that even though the lower educated run a relatively high risk to be in poor health, there is ample cross-national variation in the disparity between educational groups in having poor health. Explanations for these differences between countries are, however, rather scarce. We set out to address this lacuna by investigating the extent to which cross-national variation in the health gap between the lower and higher educated in Europe can be explained by a country’s governmental health expenditures and cyclical and structural labour market conditions. We used information from the European Social Surveys 2002-2008 on approximately 91000 individuals in 32 European nations, and estimated random slope multilevel models with cross-level interactions to empirically test our hypotheses. We find that the health gap between the lower educated and the higher educated is smaller in countries with higher levels of governmental health expenditure, and with a highly modernized labour market.

Media in the family home .

Long-term effects of parental media socialization on a person’s current media preferences .

This study analyses the intergenerational transmission of book reading and television viewing preferences. Central are the long-term effects of the parental media example and parental media guidance activities during one’s childhood on adult highbrow and lowbrow media preferences. We used information from the Family Survey of the Dutch Population (FSDP 2003, 2009) on 2,539 men and women born between 1955 and 1984. Estimating structural equation models provided insights into the lasting effects of parental reading and television socialization. Disentangling direct and indirect effects of parental media socialization showed that both imitation and guidance are important in the intergenerational transmission of media preferences. Our results suggest that imitation is the main mechanism underlying the media socialization process. Yet, parental media guidance and a child’s school success partly mediate the imitation process. Foremost, this study demonstrates that parental media socialization activities during childhood have lasting effects on a person’s current media preferences.

More or less direct democracy? .

The public’s opinion towards political decision making processes .

Scientists, policy makers and politicians all seem to agree that democracy needs renewal, and suggest that more direct democracy will decrease the so-called gap between citizens and politicians. Yet, little is known about how citizens think about direct democracy, and even less is known about citizens’ opinions about other changes in decision making processes. This study investigates to what extent citizens themselves think adjustments to the current representative system are required, either through more direct democracy, or through more power for experts which is typical for so-called stealth democracies. We find that citizens are generally satisfied with the principles of the representative decision-making process. Yet, they are dissatisfied about the way and the extent to which they are represented.