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The analysis is based on data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). The ISSP is an ongoing annual programme of cross-national collaboration on surveys covering topics important for social science research. The question on the perception of the type of society is only asked approximately every ten years, most recently in 2009. In Germany, the same question was asked in another survey within the framework of the Socio-economic Panel in 2011. The results were nearly the same.
48 countries from all over the world take part in the ISSP. Information on the perceived type of society is available for 40 countries. The analysis by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) only considers European countries and the USA. This online application is restricted to the 20 largest of those 24 countries.
In most countries there were about 1,000 respondents. In Germany, for instance, a representative sample of 1,395 respondents from the framework of the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) participated in the ISSP.
The respondents are asked to look at five diagrams which show different types of society. In each diagram the society is divided into seven different classes: Class 1 represents the bottom of the society, class 7 the top. The respondents then choose the diagram which best describes the form of the society in their country.
In every diagram the society is divided into seven classes, each represented by one bar.
When a respondent chooses a diagram, the length of each bar in that diagram is added to the length of the respective bar in a summary diagram. The latter is then aggregated by dividing the total length of each bar by the number of respondents.
In principle, the population can be classified with respect to many different characteristics – for example according to income, wealth, occupational status or education level. Nevertheless, the partition of the society into an abstract „top“ and „bottom“ is generally strongly affected by the assumed distribution of income. This is confirmed by the observation that questions concerning the concrete distribution of income produce similar results to questions with respect to the abstract type of society.
The data for the European countries come from the household survey of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). The analysis is based on the EU-SILC wave from 2010. Since the income reference period refers to the previous year, i.e. 2009, the data corresponds to the information on the type of society from the ISSP. For Switzerland the income data refers to the year 2010 because equivalent data for the year 2009 was not available. Data for the USA is based on the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); this data also applies to the year 2009.
Median income is the amount of income that divides the income distribution into two equal groups: one half of the population having income above that amount, the other half having an income below it. Median income is more robust to statistical outliers that mean income. In this application, the term income refers to household equivalent net incomes. For each person, the equivalent (per-capita) disposable income is the net income of their household divided by the equivalent household size according to the modified OECD scale, which assigns a weight of 1.0 to the head of household, 0.5 to every household member aged fourteen or older and 0.3 to each child aged less than fourteen.
The lowest class (class 1) covers all individuals with an equivalent net income below 60 percent of the median income of the total population. The so-called lower middle-income class ranges from 60 to 80 percent of median income and defines the second lowest class (class 2). The middle-income class in the strict sense is divided into two classes (class 3 from 80 to 110 percent and class 4 from 110 to 150 percent of median income). Similarly, the upper middle-income class is split into two groups (class 5 from 150 to 200 percent and class 6 from 200 to 250 percent of median income). The richest group (class 7) begins at an income of 250 percent of median income. Obviously, the demarcation of classes remains somewhat arbitrary – as is the case with the definition of the relative poverty risk. However, the country differences observed are robust to different cut-off points.
To account for differences in rhe cost of living across countries, all incomes are converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power as the U.S. dollar in the United States.
The analysis is based on data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). The ISSP is an ongoing annual programme of cross-national collaboration on surveys covering topics important for social science research. The question on the perception of the type of society is only asked approximately every ten years, most recently in 2009. In Germany, the same question was asked in another survey within the framework of the Socio-economic Panel in 2011. The results were nearly the same.
48 countries from all over the world take part in the ISSP. Information on the perceived type of society is available for 40 countries. The analysis by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) only considers European countries and the USA. This online application is restricted to the 20 largest of those 24 countries.
In most countries there were about 1,000 respondents. In Germany, for instance, a representative sample of 1,395 respondents from the framework of the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) participated in the ISSP.
The respondents are asked to look at five diagrams which show different types of society. In each diagram the society is divided into seven different classes: Class 1 represents the bottom of the society, class 7 the top. The respondents then choose the diagram which best describes the form of the society in their country.
In every diagram the society is divided into seven classes, each represented by one bar.
When a respondent chooses a diagram, the length of each bar in that diagram is added to the length of the respective bar in a summary diagram. The latter is then aggregated by dividing the total length of each bar by the number of respondents.
In principle, the population can be classified with respect to many different characteristics – for example according to income, wealth, occupational status or education level. Nevertheless, the partition of the society into an abstract „top“ and „bottom“ is generally strongly affected by the assumed distribution of income. This is confirmed by the observation that questions concerning the concrete distribution of income produce similar results to questions with respect to the abstract type of society.
The data for the European countries come from the household survey of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). The analysis is based on the EU-SILC wave from 2010. Since the income reference period refers to the previous year, i.e. 2009, the data corresponds to the information on the type of society from the ISSP. For Switzerland the income data refers to the year 2010 because equivalent data for the year 2009 was not available. Data for the USA is based on the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); this data also applies to the year 2009.
Median income is the amount of income that divides the income distribution into two equal groups: one half of the population having income above that amount, the other half having an income below it. Median income is more robust to statistical outliers that mean income. In this application, the term income refers to household equivalent net incomes. For each person, the equivalent (per-capita) disposable income is the net income of their household divided by the equivalent household size according to the modified OECD scale, which assigns a weight of 1.0 to the head of household, 0.5 to every household member aged fourteen or older and 0.3 to each child aged less than fourteen.
The lowest class (class 1) covers all individuals with an equivalent net income below 60 percent of the median income of the total population. The so-called lower middle-income class ranges from 60 to 80 percent of median income and defines the second lowest class (class 2). The middle-income class in the strict sense is divided into two classes (class 3 from 80 to 110 percent and class 4 from 110 to 150 percent of median income). Similarly, the upper middle-income class is split into two groups (class 5 from 150 to 200 percent and class 6 from 200 to 250 percent of median income). The richest group (class 7) begins at an income of 250 percent of median income. Obviously, the demarcation of classes remains somewhat arbitrary – as is the case with the definition of the relative poverty risk. However, the country differences observed are robust to different cut-off points.
To account for differences in rhe cost of living across countries, all incomes are converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power as the U.S. dollar in the United States.