1. Tony Manstead Matt Easterbrook Toon Kuppens
The ‘Education Effect’ The association between education and well-being
Is it better to create graphs of the similar variables across datasets, rather than within datasets? E.g. All SWB regression weights across US, CS, BSA on one graph, then ISSP international comparisons (where possible), then BHPS longitudinal comparisons.
Tony Manstead
Matt Easterbrook
Toon Kuppens

2. ‘Diploma Democracy’ Institutional importance Social importance
Education level has become strong indicator of job status and salary
De Graaf & Luijkx (1992); Pelleriaux (2001)
Social importance
Increase in educational homogamy
Kalmijn (1998); Smits, Ultee, & Lammers (1998)
Nevertheless, there remain strong class differences in educational achievement and subject choice
Bourdieu & Passeron (1990); Duru-Bellat & Mingat (1989); Heath and Clifford (1990)
‘Diploma Democracy’ coined by Bovens & Wille.
Education is valued highly in society, and is becoming more so, both institutionally and socially. At the same time, social background (parental status) is becoming less valued. This represents a change (in perception, if nothing else) from valuing ascribed and inherited to achieved attributes. Although this seems indicative of a move towards meritocracy, this is not the case. There appears to be a mismatch between perceptions and realities.

3. Educational Qualifications
Labour force survey

4. SDAI Phase I Replicate the education effect using UK data
Cross-sectional analyses
Understanding Society
Citizenship Survey
Do our findings generalise across nations?
International analyses
International Social Survey Programme
Is the education effect getting stronger?
Longitudinal analyses
British Household Panel Survey
British Social Attitudes
Researchers have suggested the education effect is getting stronger – Stubager 2009; Bovens & Wille, 201; 2012 – diploma democracy

5. Citizenship Survey Cross-sectional analyses using 2010-2011 wave
9,432 sample
Mean age 52 years (SD 18.52)
46% Married
55% Females
A.k.a. The communities study, Home Office Citizenship Survey HOCS
Not controlling for employment status because a very large proportion have missing data and it reduces the sample a great deal.

6. Understanding Society
Cross-sectional analyses using wave 1,
Representative sample of 48,334
Mean age (SD 18.18)
55% Female
51% Married
54% Employed
Control for age, sex, marital status, employment status, and income, where possible.

7. Personal Well-Being General Health: Satisfaction with Life
U.S.: In general, would you say your health is…
C.S.: How is your health, in general?
5-point scale
Satisfaction with Life
U.S.: What is your satisfaction with life overall?
C.S.: Overall, are you satisfied with your life?
General Health Questionnaire [12 items] 1-4 response scale.
U.S. only:
e.g., general happiness, loss of sleep, enjoy day-to-day activities, ability to face problems
- SWB generally focuses on two factors: inability to carry out one’s normal healthy functions; and emergence of new phenomena that are distressing. GHQ12 is the most widely used screening instrument for common mental disorders. Factor analysis generally yields 2 or 3 factors, usually anxiety and depression, social dysfunction, and loss of confidence and self-esteem. Here, however, EFA two factors, one explaining 50% of the variance, the other explains 10% and includes ‘playing a useful role’; ‘capable of making decisions’ and ‘general happiness’.

8. General Health Understanding society:
In general, would you say your health is…
Excellent, very good, good, fair, poor.
Citizenship Survey:
Personal Well-Being
How is your health, in general? 1-5

9. Satisfaction with Life
Understanding Society:
Satisfaction with life, overall? 1-5
Citizenship Survey:
Overall, are you satisfied with your life? 1-5

10. Subjective Well-Being – GHQ12
Understanding Society: N = 37723
U.S. Only - SWB generally focuses on two factors: inability to carry out one’s normal healthy functions; and emergence of new phenomena that are distressing. GHQ12 is the most widely used screening instrument for common mental disorders. Factor analysis generally yields 2 or 3 factors, usually anxiety and depression, social dysfunction, and loss of confidence and self-esteem. Here, however, EFA shows one factor explaining 98.67% of the variance!

11. Societal Well-Being: Citizenship Survey
Trust
Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? 1-2.
How many people in your neighbourhood can be trusted? 1-4
How much do you trust the police/parliament/local council? 1-4.
Political empowerment
Influence decisions in local area/neighbourhood. 1-4
Importance of being able to influence decisions. 1-4
Ingroup favouritism
Do you think immigration levels should be increased or decreased? 1-5
Sense of Belonging
How strongly do you feel you belong to your neighbourhood/ local area? 1-4
How strongly do you feel you belong to Great Britain/feel British? 1-4

12. Trust

13. Political attitudes

14. Sense of belonging

15. Summary: Cross-Sectional Analyses
A clear and consistent education effect for both personal and societal well-being
Education more strongly associated with subjective health rather than subjective well-being
Degree or above clearly beneficial
Consistent effects on societal well-being
Except belonging to local area – individualism?

16. International Social Survey Programme
National Identity Theme, 2003
36 Nations
44,876 Respondents
46 years SD
54% female

17. Negative perception of immigrants 1-5
Immigrants increase crime rates
Immigrants are generally good for [Country’s] economy [Reversed]
Immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in [Country]
Immigrants improve [Country Nationality] society by bringing in new ideas and cultures [Reversed]
Government spends too much money assisting immigrants

18. Nationalism
Q4a I would rather be a citizen of [Country] than of any other country in the world
Q4c The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the [Country Nationality]
Q4d Generally speaking, [Country] is a better country than most other countries
Q4e People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong.
Q4f When my country does well in international sports, it makes me proud to be [Country Nationality]

19. How close do you feel to your town? 1-4
This actually concurs with the UK analyses – despite all the negative effects associated with lower education, it does seem to increase people’s sense of belonging.

20. How close do you feel to your country? 1-4
This was different from the UK data, which showed a positive effect of identification, although the only significant effect here was for degree.

21. Summary: International data
Education effect seems to generalise well across nations, at least for personal well-being
Lower educated feel more belonging: more rooted in community, less individualistic?

22. Longitudinal: British Social Attitudes
Samples of around 3000

23. How much interest do you generally have in what is going on in politics? 1-5.
Remembers, to see if the education effect is stronger at any particular year, the SPREAD of the lines should be bigger. This suggest that the education effect has got bigger for interest in politics.

24. If you were to consider your life in general these days, how happy or unhappy would you say you are …? 1-4.

25. Do you trust the government to put the nation above their party? 1-4.
A level and degree are generally above the rest here.

26. Political Disillusionment Scale
/antipol1 'People like me have no say in what the government does'
/antipol2 'Generally speaking, those we elect as MPs lose touch with people pretty quickly'
/antipol3 'Parties are only interested in people''s votes, not in their opinions'
/antipol6 'It doesn''t really matter which party is in power, in the end things go on much the same'.

27. British Household Panel Survey
Representative sample of households with ~ 10,000 individuals followed over time in GB
Age ~ 40; 50% Females

28. How interested would you say you are in politics? 1-4
Similar for ‘did you vote’.
Indicative of a whole group in society becoming ostracised.

29. Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted …
Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted …? 0 = Can’t be too careful – 1 = Most can be trusted
So there’

30. GHQ12
This confirms that subjective well-being is rather unrelated to education.

31. Conclusions: The Education Effect
Consistent for subjective health and societal well-being measures, less so for subjective well-being
Robust across UK data
Appears to be consistent over time
Generalises across nations