Conference Agenda

The rise of economic inequality observed in countries around the globe is causing societal and political concern, triggering public and academic debates on the consequences for societal welfare and social cohesion and fostering political discussions of the role of government intervention, the state’s inability to intervene, and the legitimacy of social policies. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, these debates have taken on new significance. This study investigates how the actual redistributive efforts of European governments (here: measured as the difference between the degree of inequality (Gini index) based on market and disposable household income) shape preferences for redistribution. To address the problem of endogeneity in public opinion research, it examines preferences for redistribution by European migrants, i.e. those not socialized in the system they are asked to evaluate. It (a) explores the degree to which preferences depend on the country’s level of governmental efforts for redistribution; (b) stresses the importance of referential standards and the significance of experience and knowledge of the country of origin; and (c) investigates changes in preferences with the length of time spent in the destination country. The study uses data from the ten rounds of the European Social Survey (2002-2020), and applies multilevel modelling techniques. First empirical findings suggest knowledge and experience of different settings changes the perspective on the government’s role for redistribution: the lower the distributive efforts in the country of origin compared to the country of residence, the lower the respondent’s redistributive preferences. Our findings enrich the discussion on the effects of institutionalisation and adaptation processes on public opinion, migration, and preference formation processes.

This paper examines some potential attitudinal drivers of variation in child benefit generosity by birth order in 29 European countries (2006-2020). Previous research (including by this author) has found that most European countries tend to reduce the per-child generosity of their child benefits for later birth orders (especially third and fourth children) in low-income households. At first glance, this is not problematic from a social policy perspective, as children of later birth orders cost less on a per-child basis due to economies of scale in the household. However, the welfare chauvinism in this trend is evident in the fact that most European countries actually provide *more* generous benefits for later birth orders in high- and middle-income households, suggesting that the opposite variation in low-income households might constitute social-policy discrimination and/or antinatalist incentivisation of low-income households. Famous cases of such trends include Hungary and the UK, where child benefits are withheld from low-income children of later birth orders, which has been linked to anti-Roma attitudes and policy in the former and anti-redistribution attitudes and policy in the latter country.

Using a multivariate regression analysis and data from multiple sources (including several rounds of ESS data), I investigate here whether public attitudes such as anti-redistribution and anti-immigration are predictive of reduced benefits (on a per-child basis) for large low-income households. As indicators of such attitudes, I use a wide range of ESS questions on aspects such as the overall morality, perceived financial sustainability, and preferred scope of redistribution, as well as the preferred breadth and conditionality of immigrant rights. Moreover, since low-income households are disproportionately likely to be of a minority background, I also explore whether the aforementioned associations are mediated by the level of ethnic diversity in the country. Theoretically, the paper draws on work on welfare deservingness and Intergroup Contact Theory. Through the latter lens, I examine whether the predictive power of restrictive public attitudes for benefit variation is stronger or weaker in countries with larger and longer-standing ethnic minorities, as the existing literature provides evidence for either hypothesis.

Through its relativeily unique angle of generosity variation by birth order, this paper sheds light on the extent to which benefit variation by birth order reflects and potentially reinforces broader trends of welfare chauvinism in child benefit provision. The paper is still work in progress but preliminary results indicate positive associations between restrictive public attitudes (both in terms of general redistribution and redistribution towards immigrants specifically) and benefit reduction for later birth orders. The relationship is not, however, mediated by the level of ethnic diversity. I argue that these trends are also important from a pronatalist perspective, as the aforementioned associations hold even in pronatalist countries, which seem to face a trade-off between pronatalist instincts of incentivising large families and path-dependencies of welfare chauvinism towards them.

We can advocate that there is an apparent contradiction between the fact that inequality is increasing and the reported level of income difference desired (Norton & Ariely, 2011; Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014; Pederson & Mutz, 2019). One of the main reasons given for this discrepancy is misinformation and misperception (Gimpelson & Treisman 2017). But experiments delivering information to correct this misperception show that not all people want to know their actual ranking (Fehr et al., 2019), and furthermore, when people are wealthier than they initially thought, this can increase their reluctance to promote redistribution policies (Karadja et al., 2017). Research on inequality shows that other determinants such as culture, beliefs about the extent to which luck or effort are determinants of individuals' circumstances, and social mobility strongly influence preferences for redistribution (Piketty, 1995; Alesina & Angeletos, 2005; Alesina & La Ferrara, 2005 ; Alesina, Stantcheva & Teso, 2018). Hvidberg, Kreiner & Stantcheva, 2020 show that people are more sensitive to income inequality when people have the same education or similar working position.

In this work, we use data from the ESS, which has the advantage of providing the income level of the top and bottom 10% of full-time employees in the country where the survey took place and therefore eliminates misperceptions. We analyze the extent to which judgements about different income levels and preferences for fairness are influenced by people's perceptions of their own and others' chances of accessing education and finding a job, by their political positions and by their general judgements about people getting what they deserve, their social mobility. We also control for socio-demographic variables. We will also question to what extent their own judgment is influenced by their own occupation, relative to people who have similar social position, more precisely education or work position.