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LCSR International Workshop - Day 4

A notice by Sofia Lopatina

The 4th day of the 3rd LCSR International Workshop was opened with “Nationalism and Democracy” by Alexey Domanov (LCSR HSE, Moscow). His research seeks to measure skepticism towards migration policy. Pavel Kuzmichev (LCSR HSE) was the second speaker. His project “Democracy in the Arab World” addresses the question of mass support for democracy in Arab countries despite the absence of strong democratic institutions. Pavel suggests that this depends on a particular understanding of democracy in the Arab World. The results of factor analysis identify three distinct notions of democracy among people living in the region: democracy as Islamic democracy based upon Sharia Law; democracy as a rule of a populist-authoritarian leader; and democracy as liberal democracy, a notion that corresponds to the classical Western view on democracy.

The topic of the next section was “Migration, Values and Anti-Trafficking Enforcement”. The first presenter of the session was Veronica Kostenko (LSCR HSE) who made her final presentation on her project on the potential to assimilate of Muslim migrants in European countries. Do they retain their conservative views towards gender equality after years of living in developed countries? Veronica found that age and level of education are the strongest predictors of attitudes towards gender equality. Migrants’ attitudes towards gender equality tend to be less liberal than attitudes of local population but higher level of gender equality within a country usually brings about a higher level of gender egalitarianism among immigrants. The level of religiosity is also a strong predictor of attitudes towards gender equality. It is especially worth noting that this is true not only for Muslims, but also for Orthodox Christians and other denominations.

This section also included a report by Maria Ravlik (Georg August University Gottingen, Germany) who presented on her new project. She studies societal determinants of anti-trafficking enforcement in different countries. During the presentation she pointed out three groups of factors which may influence state policy in this field: the general level of human development in a country, political institutions, and some cultural factors.

After a short coffee-break Malina Voicu (EUROLAB, GESIS) delivered a guest lecture on “Unemployment and Attitudes towards Gender Equality”. She investigates how unemployment influences the perceptions of gender roles and attitudes towards gender egalitarianism between couples. She revealed that men are more conservative in respect of gender role distribution than women.

The after-lunch session began with Ekaterina Turanova`s (LCSR HSE) report on “Sexual Liberalization in Central Asia: a Marker of Modernization or a Choice of the Poorest”. Her preliminary results showed that younger people in Central Asia are more conservative despite the fact that they are living in conditions of relative existential security. This controversial trend needs further research. Natalia Soboleva (HSE, Moscow) focused in her presentation on work-related gender attitudes from a cross-national perspective. She focused on the differences between gender attitudes of men and women, as well as low- and higher educated. Professional status and type of job have a stronger effect upon gender attitudes of men, while employment status is more associated with women's gender attitudes. In the high educated group, type of job done (the degree of creativity and independence in job) is a stronger predictor of work-related gender attitudes, whereas in a low educated group professional status has a stronger impact.

Malgorzata Mikucka (Polish Academy of Sciences) presented her project on “Well-Being Premium to Marriage: Time Trends and Macro Processes Involved”. She found out that level of subjective well-being is related to GDP PPP per capita and the number of children. Subjective well being tends to increase over time. Nevertheless, this is the case only in developing countries, not in developed ones.

Finally Irina Vartanova (HSE, SPb) opened the last session called “Subjective Well-being: Personal Achievements and the Creative Class”. Her new research project focuses on the subjective well-being of the creative class. Dmytro Khutkyy (National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Ukraine) was the last presenter of the day. He spoke on “Individual Activism as a Way to Personal Achievement and Subjective Well-being”.

by Sofia Lopatina