Abstract Despite growing evidence that policy environments influence mental health, we have limited knowledge of how policy environments influence the stress processes that shape mental health. This study develops and tests a theoretical framework that structuralizes the stress process model by explicating how the state policy context (1) directly influences mental health, (2) indirectly influences mental health via stress exposure, and (3) mitigates the impact of stressors on mental health. This study uses nationally representative data from the Household Pulse Survey (2020–2023; n = 3,043,961) and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS; 2015–2019; n = 1,989,932) merged with state policy liberalism data to consider how state policy liberalism—the ideological orientation of state policies—shapes mental health. Results show that more liberal state policies were associated with lower odds of probable depression, probable anxiety, and frequent mental distress and weakened associations between three focal economic stressors—income loss, financial hardship, employment status—and mental health outcomes. Moreover, the association between state policy liberalism and mental health was partially mediated by financial hardship. Findings differed slightly by age: mediation via financial hardship was more evident among older adults (65+), whereas the buffering of economic-related stressors was mostly among adults under sixty-five. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of a structuralized stress process model for mental health research.
Abstract Church membership has declined across much of the Western world in recent decades. Existing research has identified individual characteristics that affect individuals’ likelihood of leaving their churches, but far less is known about how social interactions influence church decline. We examine (1) how exposure to others leaving the Church of Sweden affects individuals’ likelihood of leaving and (2) the aggregate membership dynamics generated by these micro-level processes. Using full-population register data from 2002 to 2023 and a dynamic matched-sample design, we estimate social-influence effects and assess how susceptibility varies with religious embeddedness, defined as the extent to which individuals are socially connected to other church members. We use these estimates to calibrate an agent-based simulation model linking individual behavior to aggregate membership decline. The results show that exposure to leavers increases individuals’ likelihood of leaving the Church, particularly among those with weak religious embeddedness. The simulations indicate that social influence contributed appreciably to the numerical decline of the Church of Sweden, while religious embeddedness moderated this effect. Social influence can thus amplify ongoing religious decline, while religious embeddedness attenuates this amplification.
Abstract It is well documented that unemployment is closely associated with family outcomes, affecting the occurrence, timing, and sequencing of key family transitions. Individuals with unemployment experience are more likely to postpone marriage, enter cohabiting unions, transition into parenthood outside marriage, and experience partnership dissolution. Temporary employment is often regarded as a better alternative because it provides income, opportunities for skill accumulation, and continued attachment to the labor market. In reality, however, temporary jobs are characterized by substantial insecurity and strain, which may have important consequences for family lives. Applying discrete-time event history analysis to nationally representative longitudinal data from the British household panel study, I show that temporary employment constitutes a meaningful source of uncertainty with substantial consequences for family formation and stability. The consequences of employment insecurity vary by educational attainment, gender, and union type. Educational differences strongly condition men’s family responses to employment insecurity, while for women education primarily structures exposure rather than buffering its consequences. Cohabitation functions as an adaptive response to unemployment but not to temporary employment, which is instead associated with greater instability of cohabiting unions. Together, these findings highlight the importance not only of employment, but of stable employment, for family formation and stability.
Abstract Responding to recent calls to understand populism as a problem of social integration, this article proposes a network segregation perspective for the study of populism. Specifically, it theorizes that populist voting is shaped by the socioeconomic composition of individuals’ personal networks. Combining cross-national survey data from approximately 18,000 respondents in 19 countries with expert surveys on parties’ populism, empirical analyses suggest that the socioeconomic status of personal network contacts is strongly and robustly associated with populist voting. Across multiple estimators, model specifications, and definitions of populism, we show that while the socioeconomic diversity of personal networks appears unrelated to populist voting, those with ties to higher-status individuals are consistently less likely to vote for populist candidates. Additional analysis shows that the latter association is stronger among higher-status individuals, consistent with an interpretation in which individual and network status are mutually reinforcing. These findings highlight how personal networks can help specify the mechanisms linking socioeconomic processes with populist politics.
