ABSTRACT Some participants of the public debate have argued that the world before and after the coronavirus crisis will look fundamentally different. An underlying assumption is that this crisis will alter public opinion in such a way that it leads to profound societal and political change. Scholarship suggests that while some policy preferences are quite volatile and prone to change under the influence of crises, core values formed during childhood are likely to remain stable. In this article, we test stability or change of a well-selected set of opinions and values before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We rely on a unique longitudinal panel study whereby the Dutch fieldwork of the European Values Study 2017 web survey serves as a baseline; respondents were re-approached in May 2020. The findings indicate that values remain largely stable. However, there is an increase in political support, confirming the so-called rally effect . We conclude our manuscript with a response to the futurists expecting changes in public opinion because of the coronavirus crisis.

ABSTRACT In this study, the link between atheistic beliefs and two child-rearing values (obedience and autonomy) is explored. Atheists would be more likely to show preferences for autonomy and less likely for obedience. Two individual-level explanations, namely educational attainment and expressive individualism, are tested. Moreover, the contextual effects of both religious climate and collectivistic-individualistic culture in a country are investigated. Using data from 30 countries from the European Values Study [(2011) 4th wave, Integrated Dataset ZA4800 . Data File Version 3.0.0. (November 2011). Cologne: GESIS Data Archive. doi: 10.4232/1.11004 ], it was found that both educational attainment and expressive individualism are explanations of why individuals with atheistic beliefs prefer autonomy more compared to other individuals. However, for obedience, expressive individualism could only explain the difference in preferences between religious individuals and atheists, but not the difference between atheists and those who are unsure about their religious belief. In addition, contrary to our expectations, no moderating effect of the religious context and collectivistic-individualistic culture on the relationship between atheistic beliefs and child-rearing values was found.

We employ a three-level model – with siblings nested in families nested in societies – to estimate the variability in family effects on educational attainment across countries and cohorts. To perform this comparative sibling analysis, we use survey data from eleven countries and six time periods. The results first of all show that 34 per cent of the individual variance in educational attainment can be attributed to the family, leaving 37 per cent at the individual sibling level and 28 per cent at the level of the societies investigated. Furthermore, the comparative sibling analysis makes clear that there are significant differences in family effects on educational attainment between countries and cohorts. We find that indicators of modernization, individualization, and socialism negatively influence the measured effects of parents’ socio-economic position on educational attainment. Total family impact does not vary with these societal characteristics in a systematic way, however. This seems to be in line with the reproduction hypothesis, which states that parents use compensating strategies to make up for the loss in effects of parents’ socio-economic position on educational attainment.