Table 2.

Measurements and descriptive statistics for the variables analyzed

Dimensions	Indicators	Questions and items	Operation definition	Mean	Min, max	Percentage	Data source
Country-level (N = 29)
Social and political attitudes
	Liberty aspiration	If you had to choose, which one would you say is most important? And which would be the next important?	Respondents’ priorities were “giving people more say in important government decisions” and “protecting freedom of speech”. Assigning 3 points for both items on first and second rank, 2 points for one of these items on first rank, 1 point for one of these items on second rank, and 0 for none of these items on first or second rank. The mean of the aggregate score was computed.	1.34	0.71, 1.92	---	WVS/EVS
		1. Maintaining order in the nation
		2. Giving people more say in important government decisions
		3. Fighting rising prices
		4. Protecting freedom of speech
	Democratic attitude	Could you please tell me if you agree with the following items at a 4-point scale?	The index was created by adding up the four items. The higher the value, the more-positive attitude toward democracy. The direction of item 1, 2, and 3 were reversed. Mean of the sum of scores of these four items was computed.	11.49	9.82, 12.71	---	WVS/EVS
		1. In democracy, the economic system runs badly
		2. Democracies are indecisive and have too much quibbling
		3. Democracies aren’t good at maintaining order
		4. Democracy may have problems but it’s better than any other form of government
	Value diversity	Please tell me whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified or something in between along a 10-point scale.	The sum of the standard deviation of each statement was calculated	14.21	11.92, 16.69	---	WVS/EVS
		1. Homosexuality
		2. Abortion
		3. Divorce
		4. Euthanasia
		5. Suicide
Social exclusion	Ethnic tolerance	Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?	The percentage of not mentioning immigrants	79.04	6.21, 97.40	---	WVS/EVS
	Immigrant percentage		The percentage of immigrants by total population	10.37	1.30, 39.40	---	OECD, ADB
Equal opportunities	Gender employment ratio		Female to male employment ratio	0.76	0.56, 0.94	---	OECD, ADB
	Gender wage gap		The difference between male and female earnings expressed as a percentage of male earnings	18.47	7.10, 40.40	---	OECD, ADB
	Social expenditure		Percentage of GDP	19.96	5.26, 30.10	---	OECD, ADB
	Health expenditure		Percentage of GDP	7.48	4.89, 13.00	---	OECD, ADB
	Physician density		Number of physicians per 1,000 people	2.71	1.16, 4.23	---	OECD, ADB
	Education expenditure		Percentage of GDP	5.23	2.80, 8.10	---	WDI, ADB
	Government responsibility	How would you place your views on this scale?	The percentage of people who placed their view as ≤ 5 was determined	56.52	13.92, 79.25	---	WVS/EVS
		The government should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for versus people should take the responsibility to provide for themselves.
		The responses exhibited a range from 1–10, with 1 being “government should take more responsibility” and 10 being “people should take more responsibility”.
Regional disparity	Gini index × 100		Gini coefficients of family income	31.67	22.50, 52.50	---	WDI, ADB
Availability of social relations	Association membership		Percentage of people who had joined at least one among a list of 15 voluntary organizations	60.04	14.37, 95.66	---	WVS/EVS
Quality of social relations	Social trust	Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?	Percentage of people reporting 1	36.73	12.30, 66.53		WVS/EVS
		1. Most people can be trusted
		2. Need to be very careful
Quality of social institutions	Trust in civil service	How much confidence you have in the civil service? A great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or none at all	Percentage of “a great deal” and “quite a lot”	44.42	14.34, 66.58	---	WVS/EVS
Individual-level (N = 47,923)
	Self-rated health (good health)		Fair and bad health (reference) vs. good and very good health	---	---	68.43	WVS, EVS
	Gender (men)		Women (reference) vs. men	---	---	46.97	WVS, EVS
	Age		Age in years	45.96	14, 110	---	WVS, EVS
	Educational level		Primary education (reference)	---	---	27.71	WVS, EVS
			Upper secondary education			52.06
			Tertiary education			20.23
	Income		Lower tertile (reference)	---	---	26.19	WVS, EVS
			Middle tertile			35.54
			Upper tertile			38.27

ADB, Asian Development Bank; EVS, European Value Survey; OECD, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development; WDI, World Development Indicators; WVS, World Value Survey.