A Multilevel Approach to Measuring Social Capacity in a European Context
in The International Journal of Social QualitySearch for other papers by Ferenc Bódi in
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Abstract
The focus of this article’s research was to measure and compare the social capacity, social quality, quality of life, and subjective well-being of four Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) and four postsocialist countries known as the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) in order to analyze similarities and differences. The analysis was conducted utilizing both micro and macro approaches. On the micro level, four new complex indicators were developed from the social well-being model of the 2012 European Social Survey, based on the social quality approach, while the macro-level analysis consisted of indicators from the Eurostat Regions database and the 2011 population census. The analysis demonstrates that using complex indicators and combining a micro-macro approach can complement each other, bringing about an understanding of nuances and subtle differences not found in singular approaches and creating a more accurate assessment of the social quality in local, city, and national levels of society.
Contributor Notes
Ferenc Bódi is a sociologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Political Science, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He takes part in the Program of National Excellence at the University of Pannonia. His scholarly career started in 1992 and 1993 with the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund. Furthermore, between 2004 and 2007, he earned the Bolyai Research Grant. He has belonged to Local Organization of Social Services (LOSS) international research team since 1995. His main research interests include the effects of crisis on society, social disruptions of values, and measuring anomie. E-mail: bodi.ferenc@tk.mta.hu
Jenő Zsolt Farkas is a historian, geographer, GIS expert, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has a PhD in Earth Sciences and is a member of the Hungarian Geographical Society. His main research field is rural geography, especially in rural restructuring processes, the effect of EU subsidies, and state regulations to agriculture and land use. His research interests also involve regional inequalities and regional development models and their adaptation in rural development. E-mail: farkasj@rkk.hu
Péter Róbert is Professor of Sociology at the Széchenyi István University. He earned his degree at Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE), received his PhD from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and has made his habilitation at ELTE. He also works as a project-based senior researcher at TÁRKI Social Research Institute. His research interests include social stratification, educational inequalities, school-to-work transition, the perception of social inequalities, and subjective well-being. E-mail: robert@tarki.hu