Indicators of subjective well-being as characteristics for typology building

Indicators of subjective well-being as characteristics for typology building


Tatarova G.G.

Dr. Sci. (Soc.), Prof., Chief Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia tatarova-gg@rambler.ru

Kuchenkova A.V.

Cand. Sci. (Soc.), Senior Lecturer, Russian State University for the Humanities, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russia a.v.kuchenkova@gmail.com

ID of the Article: 6391


For citation:

Tatarova G.G., Kuchenkova A.V. Indicators of subjective well-being as characteristics for typology building. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2016. No 10. P. 21-32




Abstract

The article presents methodological solutions for testing the hypothesis of the existence of social types among Russians, based on the indicators of subjective well-being. These solutions rely on the secondary conceptualization of empirical data of international comparative research “European Social Survey” and allow forming a set of characteristics for typology building. The empirical data used in this paper are responses of respondents from Russian sample (2012). A list of characteristics for typology building involves indicators of subjective well-being and stages of the life cycle. Suggested methodological solutions relate mainly to the processes of finding the factor structure of empirical indicators and forming a set of independent classification variables. These kinds of decisions appear as a result of realizing the “triple reflection” principle – examination of three components, without which typologization is impossible. These are existing experience of subjective well-being measurement; logical structure of the typological analysis including specifics of the proposed classification algorithm and the functional role of the different characteristics for building typology; empirically identified patterns (factor structure of the variables, the peculiarity of the responses’ distribution in the Russian case).


Keywords
typological analysis; characteristics for building typology; typological structure; subjective well-being; classification variable; stage of life cycle; factor analysis
Content No 10, 2016