Comparative Perspectives on Social Values and Modernization,Third Day, April 26, 2011
The Laboratory for Comparative Social Studies hosted the international workshop «Comparative Perspectives on Social Values and Modernization » in Saint Petersburg on April 24-27 2011.
Christian Welzel
HUMAN EMPOWERMENT: A Framework to Analyse Social and Political Change
Michail Chernysh
Rinat Menyashev
Topic: "Inefficient State or Passive Society? The Analysis of Demand for State Intervention in Russia " (New Project!)
It may sound like a paradox, but many people tend to support state order and control notwithstanding its quality. Does it happen because they have no capacity for self-organization?
Rinat studies this question in his research project and mentions that lack of self-control in the society leads to monopoly power of the state and corruption as a result of this process. Then Rinat assumes that the cities where civil activity and leadership are more developed are more liberal and successful. The researcher plans to validate this hypothesis by analyzing interconnections of social capital, demand for state regulation and development.
Natalia Firsova
In her research project Natalia focuses on personal feeling of freedom in various countries. To ascertain what it depends on, she analyses importance of democracy, political rights, civil and economic liberties for personal feeling of freedom in certain countries. She conducted regression analysis and found out that economic liberties and prosperity are statistically significant, but political and civil rights are irrelevant for subjective perception of freedom.
Tatiana Karabchuk
Nowadays we can see evident growth of women employment and fertility index (for example, number of children per family grows). It is well known that women leave jobs for quite a long time after having a baby. Her return is often stressful and difficult. Then job satisfaction declines and leads to general frustration. It this situation a woman has to deal with a problem: whether to have a second or a third baby or to start a career. Tatiana assumes that in the countries where labor legislation is more liberal, women feel more safe and comfortable when having a baby as well as when returning to work. For this reason she feels more satisfies with her life.
Sviatlana Kroitar
Topic: "Happiness and Life Satisfaction as Indicators of Subjective Well-Being: Comparative Perspective "
Sviatlana’s research questions are as follows: what is the difference in life satisfaction in various groups of countries? How does cultural diversity influence on life satisfaction. The researcher decided to split countries into groups according to 2 basic features: cultural zone (that depends for the most part on the religion) and level of interpersonal trust. Sviatlana found out that low or high level of happiness doesn’t correlate directly with low or high level of life satisfaction. Also, according to her results, happiness is more stable than life satisfaction.
Violetta Khabibulina
Topic: "Well-Being of a Couple: are cross-cultural differences involved into putative pathway? " (New Project!)
Violetta raises an interesting question in her research. She wonders how culture and ethnicity are incorporated into relations in a couple and how these two correlate with well-being. The researcher assumes that high estimation of well-being depends, at one hand, on ethnic and cultural background of both partners. On the other hand, psychological climate in the family is also important. Speaking about well-being, she focuses on economic situation (in the family and in the country) and ethnic and cultural background.
Julia Zelikova
Topic: "Successful Aging: Subjective Well-being in Late Life Period" (New Project!)
According to Julia’s assumptions, certain factors determine successful aging. These are low level of illnesses and diseases, good physical and intellectual abilities as well as involvement in active life. Another important determinant of successful aging is subjective well-being. What influences on it in late period of life? This is the main research question of this study. Julia develops a hypothesis that women evaluate their well-being lower than men. Education and income level also tend to play a significant role.