As part of the European Union’s Year of Youth, the European Social Survey (ESS) is holding an online conference from 1-3pm (GMT) on Wednesday 7 December 2022.
Abstract
Substantive research that focuses specifically on the attitudes of young people will be presented by academics on a range of topics included in the first ten rounds of the survey (2002-22).
Five papers will be presented during the webinar, with the first three showcasing analysis of ESS climate change and energy data.
Presentations will focus on climate change and wellbeing, environmental concerns and voting behaviours and attitudes towards reducing energy use.
Research that relied on ESS data to show how the pandemic has helped shaped young people’s perspectives on the future, and attitudes towards digital technology will also be presented.
The European Social Survey headquarters is part of the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City, University of London.
The event will be chaired by Eric Harrison, Deputy Director of the ESS and Co-Director of the City Q-Step Centre.
The event is free to attend, simply register your details to receive a unique Zoom Webinar link.
Do young people’s concerns about climate change relate to wellbeing?
Alina Cosma (Trinity College Dublin) and Gina Martin (Athabasca University) will examine whether young people’s mental health is negatively affected by worrying about climate change and feeling a personal responsibility to prevent it.
Research using data from those aged 15-35 who took part in ESS Round 8 (2016/17) will establish if there are associations between wellbeing (happiness and life satisfaction) and concern/personal responsibility for climate change.
Cosma and Martin will also consider whether age, gender and frequency of climate change thoughts moderated any of these associations, as well as implications for future research, and policy recommendations.
Are young voters more loyal than others to environmental concerns?
Elisabetta Mannoni (Central European University) will tackle the question of whether young individuals are more likely to vote more consistently with their environmental concern than older voters do.
The presentation will provide theoretical background information on the attitude-behaviour relationship (with a particular focus on voting and pro-environmental behaviours) as well as an overview of the main determinants of young people’s vote choices.
Mannoni assessed ESS Round 10 (2020-22) data and the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES).
Approaching the European energy crisis from the demand side
Julian Reul (Institute of Energy and Climate Research) will focus on ESS Round 8 (2016/17) in light of the current energy crisis, with rising gas and electricity prices across Europe.
Reul will present research that assessed the factors that influence a willingness to reduce the energy use of private households among three different age groups.
The research - conducted with Thomas Grube, Jochen Linßen, and Detlef Stolten - estimated a mixed logit model with a nonparametric distribution.
This included three socio-economic items (household income, household size and children in the household) and four attitudinal attributes (trust in politicians, concern for high energy prices, importance of the environment and frequency of thoughts about climate change).
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people’s perspectives on the future
Laurène Thil (HIVA - Research Institute for Work and Society, KU Leuven) will reveal the results of a new survey conducted in 2022 to examine the impact of COVID-19 on young people’s opinions.
The survey - undertaken in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Poland - asked respondents about the education system, their ability to be heard in the decision-making processes at EU and country level, their levels of optimism about their future, and their subjective wellbeing
It used the exact question wording from previous surveys - the ESS (2002-22), Eurobarometer (2020), European Values Study (1981, 1990, 1999, 2008 and 2017) and the European Quality of Life Survey (2012, 2016) - to allow for comparisons over time.
Perceptions of youth towards information and communication technologies (ICT)
Maria Symeonaki (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences) will present analysis of our newest available dataset (Round 10, 2020-22) measuring attitudes towards digital social contacts in work and family life.
Symeonaki will reveal cross-national discrepancies in attitudes towards digital mobile and online communication of young individuals compared with older respondents.
Digital habits and how contact has changed due to the COVID 19 pandemic in the workplace will also be discussed, as will the frequency of remote working pre- and post-pandemic.
The latest data on Internet access, digital skills and connectivity issues will be compared with previous rounds of the ESS.
Estimated indicators will be depicted on DGMap, an online interactive application that visualises the use of ICT amongst children and young individuals in European countries, with data drawn from large scale international and European surveys.
About the speakers
Dr. Alina Cosma is a researcher with extensive experience in exploring individual, social, and structural determinants of adolescent health and wellbeing.
Cosma has also designed and managed cross-national, cross-sectional health surveys focusing on children and adolescents. Currently, she holds a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin (Project GenerationZ). Her project explores contemporary perspectives on adolescent mental health.
Dr. Gina Martin is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Disciplines at Athabasca University, Canada.
Her research focuses on understanding the relationships between the environments where children and young people live, play, and learn and their wellbeing.
Elisabetta Mannoni is a PhD candidate in Comparative Politics at Central European University (CEU), Vienna, Austria, where she researches the relationship between attitudes, intentions, and behaviour around environmental protection and pro-environmental voting.
Her research interests concern political psychology, voting behavior, and public opinion. Mannoni holds an MA in Political Science and Government from the University of Milan, Italy, an MRes in Political Science from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from LUISS University of Rome, Italy.
Julian Reul is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research - Techno-economic Systems Analysis (IEK-3) at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH.
He graduated with a MSc in mechanical engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 2019 and subsequently joined the IEK-3 as a PhD student, focusing on the topic of future mobility behaviour. As a postdoctoral researcher, he studies the decision-making of individuals as well as private companies in the energy and transport sector.
Laurène Thil joined the Work, Organisation and Social Dialogue research group at HIVA, KU Leuven, as a researcher in 2022. She is currently conducting research on employment, quality of work and gender equality.
Prior to this, she was a project assistant in the Gender Equality Division at the Council of Europe and was a trainee at the European Institute for Gender Equality. She obtained a PhD in economics at the University of Strasbourg in 2020.
Maria Symeonaki is Professor of Social Statistics at the Department of Social Policy, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, and Director of the ‘Social Statistics and Data Analysis Laboratory’ (STADA Lab).
She studied Mathematics at the Faculty of Sciences at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and holds a PhD in Statistics and Operations Research. Her research combines state-of-the-art statistical and computational techniques for the analysis of data drawn from international, large-scale surveys to derive impactful results that inform social policies.
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