Support for conditional unemployment benefit in European countries: The role of income inequality

an article by Renzo Carriero and Marianna Filandri (University of Turin, Italy) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 29 Issue 4 (October 2019)

Abstract

This article investigates attitudes towards the conditionality of benefits targeted to a specific needy group, the unemployed, and analyses their relationship with the structure of income inequality. The focus is on the deservingness of welfare recipients.

The public seems to use five criteria to define deservingness and, consequently, the conditionality to which public support is subjected:

1. need,
2. attitude (i.e. gratefulness),
3. control (over neediness),
4. reciprocity (of giving and receiving) and
5. identity, that is the similarity or proximity between the providers of public support (the taxpayers) and the people who should receive it. People’s willingness to help depends on how close they consider benefit recipients to be to themselves (i.e. the extent to which they belong to the same in-group). 

The identity criterion is the main object of our investigation. We argue that the operation of this criterion at the micro-level can be affected by macro-level variables.

Specifically, we focus on different measures of the structure of income inequality which are indicators of the social distance between welfare recipients and taxpayers. Based on data from three waves of the European Values Study (1990–2008) collected in

30 countries, the study offers a comparative and longitudinal analysis. The picture emerging from the within-country analysis – which removed much of the between-country heterogeneity − shows that when the social distance grows, it is more difficult for the majority of citizens (upper and middle classes) to identify with the unemployed.

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Shifting Societal Attitudes: Examining the Effects of Perspective Taking on Attitudes toward and Derogation of the Poor

an article by Jessica Louise Wiese (St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Canada) and Colleen Loomis and Terry Mitchell (Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) published in Journal of Poverty Volume 23 Issue 1 (2019)

Abstract

People tend to hold negative attitudes about and derogate those in poverty to varying degrees, often relying on individualistic explanations of poverty that largely ignore systemic sources.

This study (N = 208) examined a perspective-taking strategy that could be used to reduce distancing behaviors and negative attitudes toward the poor. Perspective takers distanced less and reported fewer negative attitudes than others.

An additional finding was that men (n = 57) were more likely to derogate/distance than women, showed greater agreement with personal deficiency explanations for poverty, and reported stronger stereotypic attitudes toward people who are impoverished.

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