The Well-Being of Young People in Europe During the Pandemic: The Social Ties, Labor Market Integration, and the Social Inequalities

Stanojević, Dragan and Todosijević, Bojan and Gvozdanović, Anja (2024) The Well-Being of Young People in Europe During the Pandemic: The Social Ties, Labor Market Integration, and the Social Inequalities. In: Well-being During the Pandemic: Comparative Perspectives from the Global North and South. Springer Nature, Cham, Švajcarska, pp. 69-97. ISBN 978-3-031-63439-0, eBook ISBN 978-3-031-63440-6, Series ISSN 1387-6570

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the relationships between life satisfaction and three dimensions of integration: social ties, participation in the labor market, and political participation among the European youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it is commonly presumed that a higher level of social integration corresponds to a greater level of life satisfaction it is important to explore whether certain forms of integration may be associated with greater dissatisfaction and frustration. For instance, under certain circumstances, dissatisfaction might motivate greater political participation and involvement in various social networks. In other words, it is of interest to ascertain whether dissatisfaction might, in fact, foster a greater propensity to connect with others and engage in collective actions. We address this problem by using multilevel data. The individual-level data come from the tenth cycle of the European Social Survey (ESS10-2018), conducted across 31 countries during the years 2020–2022. Since our study focuses on youth, a sub-population comprising individuals aged 15–35 years was extracted. In order to control for the contextual-level data, we employed two standard indicators, GINI and GDP per capita. The results show that the various forms of integration—closer social ties, being a member of an ethnic majority, labor market integration, and some forms of political participation (voting)—are associated with greater life satisfaction.

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