The Values and Social Position of Individuals as Factors which Determine the Request for State Social Support: The Comparative Analysis of European Countries

The study analyzes the nature of the requests of the population of various European countries for state assistance in three social spheres. On the basis of the studied literature, assumptions were made about the influence of such indicators as value preferences, micro living conditions and the type of social state. In the course of the study, we were able to prove that a person's commitment to the values of individualism and collectivism will have a multidirectional impact on his request addressed to the state. As the subjective assessment of a person's financial situation deteriorates, the situation in the labor market becomes more unstable, and distrust and dissatisfaction with various sectors of the state increases, as expected, the query index will increase. In the cross-country perspective, the greatest demand will be among the citizens of post-socialist and family-type states, which can be explained by the asymmetry of information, the crisis of public relations (for familialist countries), and the violation of the social contract (for post-socialist countries). Quantitative research methods were used to confirm or refute hypotheses. The data of the eighth wave of the European Social Survey, conducted in 2016, was used as a database. The sample consists of 44,387 respondents from 23 European countries, including Russia. The analysis was performed using SPSS.