Housing conditions vary widely across the EU and the fact that new member-states are lagging behind in this regard has even come onto the European policy agenda. This article examines housing conditions as an outcome of complex social developments and highlights specific reasons why housing conditions vary so much within the EU. Thus the specific impact is observed of factors which have been identified in the literature as characterising distinctive housing models: the eastern European housing model, the southern European housing model and the distinction between cost-renting and homeowning countries. Further, the impact of these factors, along with general socioeconomic development, is empirically assessed by a linear regression model based on the EQLS 2003 dataset. The results clearly support the thesis of economic development playing a decisive role, with it being the biggest single factor explaining variations in housing conditions across the EU, followed by the significant influence of policy choice and the incidence of family support.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30494301
Sense of community is analyzed in two very different types of neighborhoods inLjubljana, Slovenia: a large housing estate and a middle-class neighborhood of individual houses. The main research question posed is which individual characteristics are associated with sense of community in the two neighborhoods. A specific addition to current knowledge involves the inclusionof values as important characteristics associated with sense of community. The analysis wasmade on a quota sample of 337 individuals. Sense ofcommunity was shown to be comprised of three factors: (1) contact with neighbors; (2) social control; and (3) attachment.We observed this separately in the two neighborhoods. The analysis showed that values significantly increase the modelʼs explanatory power and that the two neighborhoods differ significantly in terms of which variables are important for sense of community, therefore indicating that this could be highly context-dependent. In addition, qualitative data are used to illustrate the sense of community inthe two neighborhoods
COBISS.SI-ID: 30824029
In recent years many cross-national comparative surveys, such as Gender and Generation Programme, International Social Survey Programme, European Quality of Life Survey, or General Social Survey, have included assessment of social support networks. Generally, two approaches were used; the name generator approach and the role relation approach. As more cross-country surveys are conducted every year, it may seem reasonable to use such data sets, since they provide high quality comparisons across countries. However, one should pay close attention to the measurement instruments, as these may cause unintentional but systematic variability in the observed data. While the data from each survey can be of high quality Ćper seĆ, we claim that results from these surveys are not comparable, owing to their different measurement approaches and survey instruments. In this paper we present data from several experiments which show that scientific findings from these surveys depend significantly on questionnaire design.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30231645