Tolerance, social capital, and life satisfaction: a multilevel model from transition countries in the European Union

Figures & data

Figure 1. Components of social capital.

Figure 2. Framework linking social capital, individual characteristics and place characteristics to life satisfaction.

Figure 3. Distribution of life satisfaction ‘All things considered I am satisfied with my life now’.

Table 1. Variable descriptions and summary statistics of indicators used in social capital factor analysis.

Variable	Description	Mean	Std. Dev.
Tolerance
Tolerance: neighbours mentioned that the respondent does not want – different race	=1 if tolerant, 0 otherwise	0.85	0.36
Tolerance: neighbours mentioned that the respondent does not want – immigrants/foreign workers	=1 if tolerant, 0 otherwise	0.65	0.48
Tolerance: neighbours mentioned that the respondent does not want – homosexuals	=1 if tolerant, 0 otherwise	0.56	0.50
Tolerance: neighbours mentioned that the respondent does not want – religious beliefs	=1 if tolerant, 0 otherwise	0.93	0.25
Tolerance: Do you think immigrants are valuable to society?	=1 if Yes, 0 otherwise	0.33	0.47
Trust
Trust – the presidency	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.40	0.49
Trust – the government	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.21	0.41
Trust – the regional government	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.23	0.42
Trust – the local government	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.40	0.49
Trust – the parliament	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.16	0.37
Trust – the courts	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.27	0.45
Trust – political parties	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.10	0.30
Trust – the armed forces	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.58	0.49
Trust – the police	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.55	0.50
Trust – banks and the financial system	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.38	0.49
Trust – foreign investors	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.20	0.40
Trust – non-governmental organisations	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.26	0.44
Trust – trade unions	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.25	0.43
Trust – religious institutions	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.35	0.48
Trust – family	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.83	0.38
Trust – neighbourhood	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.71	0.45
Trust – people you meet for the first time	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.24	0.43
Trust – foreigners	=1 if some or complete trust, 0 otherwise	0.16	0.37
Formal Ties
Member – Church	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.19	0.40
Member – sports and recreational organisations and associations	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.09	0.28
Member – art, music or educational organisations	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.04	0.20
Member – labour union	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.05	0.22
Member – environmental organisations	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.02	0.13
Member – professional organisations	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.04	0.20
Member – humanitarian or charitable organisations	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.04	0.19
Member – youth association	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.02	0.13
Member – women’s groups	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.02	0.16
Member – farming cooperatives	=1 if a member, 0 otherwise	0.02	0.13

Table 2. Factor loadings for social capital indicators: trust, ties and tolerance.

Component	Factor1	Factor2	Factor3
Tolerance: different race	0.0624	−0.024	0.8203
Tolerance: immigrants/foreign workers	0.0819	0.0148	0.8088
Tolerance: homosexuals	−0.0111	0.1439	0.6824
Tolerance: different religious beliefs	0.0133	0.0184	0.7328
Tolerance: Do you think immigrants are valuable to society?	0.0433	0.0353	0.4959
Trust – the presidency	0.7138	0.0514	−0.0464
Trust – the government	0.8288	−0.0235	−0.0183
Trust – the regional government	0.7738	0.0248	−0.0185
Trust – the local government	0.7359	0.0177	−0.0806
Trust – the parliament	0.8606	0.0174	−0.0086
Trust – the courts	0.7795	0.0035	0.0096
Trust – political parties	0.828	0.003	−0.0338
Trust – the armed forces	0.6694	0.0267	0.0149
Trust – the police	0.7055	−0.0017	0.0313
Trust – banks and the financial system	0.6408	0.0154	0.0366
Trust – foreign investors	0.6785	−0.0025	0.1639
Trust – non-governmental organisations	0.6737	0.1088	0.2114
Trust – trade unions	0.6815	0.0624	0.0477
Trust – religious institutions	0.6101	0.0497	−0.0495
Trust – neighbourhood	0.408	0.0247	0.1496
Trust – people you meet for the first time	0.4787	0.0446	0.2823
Trust – foreigners	0.4745	0.0759	0.372
Member – Church	0.1214	0.571	−0.0174
Member – sports and recreational organisations and associations	0.0092	0.7499	0.1344
Member – art, music or educational organisations	0.0498	0.8566	0.0748
Member – labour union	0.0045	0.7668	0.0018
Member – environmental organisations	0.0193	0.9649	0.0196
Member – professional organisations	0.0491	0.8139	0.1332
Member – humanitarian or charitable organisations	−0.0326	0.8644	0.089
Member – youth association	0.0042	0.9465	0.0312
Member – women’s groups	0.075	0.8832	−0.0413
Member – farming cooperatives	0.0228	0.9227	−0.05

Notes: 1. Rotated factor loadings (pattern matrix) and unique variances using principal component factors and orthogonal varimax (Kaiser on). 2. Bold represent abs(loading) > .3.

Figure 4. Maps of life satisfaction and social capital across the sample.

Table 3. Summary statistics of variables.

Variable	Description	Mean	Std. Dev.
Life Satisfaction	‘All things considered, I am satisfied with my life now’ [Likert scale 1-5: Strongly disagree, disagree, neither disagree or agree, agree, strongly agree]	3.36	1.06
Trust	Derived from PCA	0.39	0.35
Ties	Derived from PCA	0.002	0.14
Tolerance	Derived from PCA	0.85	0.34
Friends	=1 if meets with friends and family weekly or most days, 0 otherwise	0.57	0.49
Health	Assessment of health [likert scale 1-5: very good, good, medium, bad, very bad]	2.58	0.92
Employer-Type Occupation	=1 if an employer, 0 otherwise	0.04	0.20
Wage Employee-Type Occupation	=1 a wage employee, 0 otherwise	0.44	0.50
Not in Employment	=1 if not in employment, 0 otherwise	0.51	0.50
Unemployment Benefit Recipient	=1 if receiving unemployment state benefit, 0 otherwise	0.05	0.21
Income	=1 if easily meeting unexpected expenses equivalent to domestic poverty threshold, 0 otherwise	0.28	0.45
Diverse Background	=1 if not in the main ethnic group of the country, or otherwise	0.06	0.23
Urban Location	=1 if in an urban location, 0 otherwise	0.55	0.50
Male	=1 if male, 0 otherwise	0.42	0.49
Log of Age	Age in log form	3.90	0.38
Married	=1 if married, 0 otherwise	0.47	0.50
Third Level Education	=1 if the respondent has a third level education, 0 otherwise	0.22	0.42
Second Level Education	=1 if the respondent has a second level education, 0 otherwise	0.65	0.48
Primary Level Education	=1 if the respondent has a primary education, 0 otherwise	0.12	0.33
Time at Place	=1 living in that area for more than 10 years, 0 otherwise	0.49	0.50
Buddhist	=1 if Buddhist, 0 otherwise	0.00	0.03
Jewish	=1 if Jewish, 0 otherwise	0.00	0.02
Christian	=1 if Christian, 0 otherwise	0.76	0.43
Muslim	=1 if Muslim, 0 otherwise	0.01	0.07
Other Religion	=1 if other religion, 0 otherwise	0.03	0.18
No Religion	=1 if no religion, 0 otherwise	0.20	0.40

Notes: 1. Variables and descriptions refer to primary respondent in LIT.

Table 4. Multilevel ordered probit model of life satisfaction.

Variable	Coefficient (Std. Err)
Trust	0.682***
	(0.027)
Ties	0.225***
	(0.067)
Tolerance	0.107***
	(0.028)
Friends	0.095***
	(0.018)
Health	−0.276***
	(0.012)
Employer-Type Occupation	0.232***
	(0.049)
Wage Employee-Type Occupation	0.079***
	(0.024)
Unemployment Benefit Recipient	−0.406***
	(0.043)
Income	0.495***
	(0.022)
Diverse Background	−0.114***
	(0.046)
Urban Location	0.021
	(0.021)
Male	−0.077***
	(0.019)
Log of Age	−7.008***
	(0.509)
Log of Age^2	0.938***
	(0.068)
Married	0.188***
	(0.019)
Third Level Education	0.290***
	(0.037)
Secondary Level Education	0.109***
	(0.030)
Time at Place	0.003
	(0.019)
Buddhist	0.260
	(0.316)
Jewish	0.555
	(0.446)
Christian	0.060**
	(0.027)
Muslim	−0.040
	(0.132)
Other Religion	0.098*
	(0.054)
var(_cons[country])	0.057***
	(0.028)
var(_cons[country > region_name])	0.043***
	(0.009)
Observations	14,897
Number of groups (Region/Country)	101/10

Notes: 1. Standard errors in parentheses. 2. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. 3. Reference categories are no religion, primary education and not in employment. 4. LR test indicates that the mixed effects ordered probit model is superior to a standard ordered probit regression. The LR test assesses whether the random effects parameters of region and country are simultaneously zero. This hypothesis is rejected.

Table 5. Residual intraclass correlation.

Level	ICC	Std. Err.	[95% Conf. Interval]
Country	0.051	0.024	0.020	0.124
Region/Country	0.091	0.024	0.053	0.150

Data availability statement

The replication data developed from the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) III described in the paper, is available online at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SOTRDJ, Harvard Dataverse.