Fig 1.
World map of perceived livability for minorities.
Perceived livability ranges from very bad (dark red) to very good (dark green). This map covers 163 countries and is based on perceived livability for racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, foreign immigrants, and people with intellectual disabilities. It was generated using Google sheets.
Fig 2.
The complex natural ecology of perceived livability.
Fig 3.
Geographical distributions of perceived livability for minorities.
Panel A shows that perceived livability for minorities (z) increases at higher latitudes with greater habitat variability, while controlling for longitude. These poleward increases have opposite north-south directions in the ecologically opposite northern (B(129) = 0.10; P < 0.001; R2 = 0.23; CI = 0.07 to 0.13) and southern (B(28) = -0.18; P < 0.001; R2 = 0.33; CI = -0.27 to -0.08) hemispheres. In contrast, panel B indicates that perceived livability for minorities (z) shows minimal variation along longitude [B(159) = -0.02; P = 0.016; R2 = 0.03; CI = -0.04 to -0.00], while controlling for latitude. The broken lines represent confidence intervals (95%).
Fig 4.
Effects of habitat variability on perceived livability for minorities in poor and rich societies.
Perceived local livability increases in more variable habitats: r(161) = 0.55; P < 0.001; CI = 0.43 to 0.65. The increases are larger for richer societies [r(77) = 0.47; P < 0.001; CI = 0.28 to 0.63] than for poorer societies [r(82) = 0.23; P = 0.04; CI = 0.01 to 0.42; z = 1.76; P = 0.04; total R2 = 0.50].
Table 1.
Explanatory ecological model: main and interaction effects of habitat variability on perceived livability for minorities mediated by governance quality rather than own habitat satisfaction (R2 = 0.57; N = 163)a.
Table 2.
Individual-level effects (R2 ≈ 0.03) and country-level effects (R2 ≈ 0.52) on individual perceptions of livability for minorities.
Table 3.
Forecast accuracy of perceived livability for minorities in the future (2016-2020) based on two regression models developed in the past (2010-2015).
Table 4.
Explanatory ecological model: intercorrelations of the outcome variable (1) and main predictors (2-3) with the mediating (4-5) and control variables (6-15).