Public Support for Welfare provision

Question 1

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Burgoon, Baute, and Noort (2022)
Argument

Economic Self-Interesct

Answer 1

• Individuals are more supportive of government redistribution when they face more positional deprivation, that is, the extent to which an individual’s growth in income is outpaced by the income growth of others in their country.
• This is because positional deprivation can awaken insecurities about economic misfortune and status loss, making people more supportive of policies which redress inequalities.

Question 2

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Burgoon, Baute, and Noort (2022)
Data/Methodology

Economic Self-interest

Answer 2

• They use objective measures of positional deprivation by matching data on household income in the LIS to data on individual-level support for government redistribution and welfare assistance from to ESS
• They also use subjective measures of positional deprivation using data from the European Unemployment Risk-Sharing Survey. The survey asks whether a respondent believes that his or her own household income has declined more rapidly or increased less rapidly than the growth experienced by the average household in his or her country.
• They test whether those experiencing higher positional deprivation are more supportive of government redistribution than those experiencing lower positional deprivation

Question 3

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Burgoon, Baute, and Noort (2022)
Findings

Answer 3

• Subjective answers about positional deprivation correlate significantly and positively with LIS-based measures of objective positional deprivation surmised from a respondent’s country-decile.
• They find strong support for the hypothesis that a respondent’s positional deprivation is positively and statistically significantly correlated with Support for Government redistribution.
• This is support for government redistribution which is correlated to but not identical to support for government spending on the welfare state; Burgoon et al also find modest evidence that support for welfare-assistance parameters is not as strongly predicted by positional deprivation as government redistribution, with the exception of old-age assistance, support for which is significantly correlated with positional deprivation.
• These findings are particularly strong when people’s income growth is outpaced by the income growth of the richest

Question 4

Public Support for Welfare Provision

O’Grady (2017)
Argument

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 4

• Voter’s preferences are based more on their long-term values than changes in their economic circumstances
• People’s long-run preferences for social policy are primarily based on their long-run economic interests, often being shaped by their families economic and political background, and their early experiences in the labour market

Question 5

Public Support for Welfare Provision

O’Grady (2017)
Data/Methodology

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 5

• He uses data from the Swiss Household Panel Survey
• He determines whether coming from a poor and/or left-wing family is associated with greater support for social spending using two questions ask about the political beliefs of respondent’s parents and a variable of whether a respondent reports their family having ‘financial problems’ during their youth

Question 6

Public Support for Welfare Provision

O’Grady (2017)
Findings

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 6

• There is no relationship between small, regular changes in economic circumstances such as income and employment risks and preferences for social spending
• There is circumstantial evidence that large improvements in economic circumstances lead to decreased support for redistribution and social policy
• He also finds support for the claims that coming from a poor and/or left-wing family is associated with greater support for social spending
• Young respondents’ preferences over social spending are much more variable and more associated with changes in economic circumstances than older respondents

Question 7

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Rehm, Hacker, and Schlesinger (2022)
Argument

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 7

There will be broader support for government spending on the welfare state when there is a weaker correlation between income and risk within a country or policy area, as when this correlation is weaker, welfare programs will unite lower income citizens who support them because of their redistributive aspect, and more affluent citizens, who support them due to their insurance function

Question 7

Public Support for Welfare Provision

O’Grady (2017)
Possible Methodological issues

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 7

• ‘Financial problems’ is quite subjective and may entail a very wide variety of economic circumstances so this may not accurately capture whether a respondent came from a poor family. Furthermore, people’s perceptions of ‘financial problems’ during their childhood may be affected by their political beliefs.
• O’Grady himself points out that part of the correlation between economic circumstances during childhood and preferences in adulthood is likely explained by the fact that those with lower income and higher unemployment risks tend to come from poorer, more left-wing families.

Question 8

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Rehm, Hacker, and Schlesinger (2022)
Findings

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 8

• They find strong support for all the hypotheses that when low income and high risk are less correlated there is more limited opposition to social policies, less polarised opinion over social policies, and a higher average level of support for these social programs
• This suggests that the welfare state appeals to the disadvantaged and the insecure; the more these groups cross-over the less people are in at least one or the other, and the less broad support for government spending on the welfare state is. This implies that people support the welfare state more if it will personally benefit them, and do not support it if it holds no benefit for them or makes them worse off.

Question 8

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Rehm, Hacker, and Schlesinger (2022)
Data/Methodology

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 8

• They test for whether when low income and high risk are less correlated there is more limited opposition to social policies, less polarised opinion over social policies, and a higher average level of support for these social programs
• They a cross-national analysis of variation in support for unemployment benefits, with the correlation of household income and the risk of unemployment within a nation as the key independent variable.

Question 9

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Rehm, Hacker, and Schlesinger (2022)
Possible Methodological Issues

Economic Self-Interest

Answer 9

• Rehm et al point out that there is potential for an issue of endogeneity because social policies themselves shape the correlation between income and risk; when there is more spending on welfare, there is likely to be a smaller correlation between income and risk, so it may be that rather than this smaller correlation causing greater welfare support, it is actually greater welfare support that is causing this smaller correlation.
• To deal with this issue Rehm et al rely in their cross-national analysis on measures of income-risk distributions that are based on pre-government income, that is, income before taxes and transfers. They also ensure that their tests are not contaminated by differences in the extent of market income inequality across nations by basing our measures of the income-risk correlation on relative rather than absolute market income, and focus their cross-national analysis on unemployment insurance, an area of policy where the threat of reverse causality is comparatively weaker than other areas.

Question 10

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Gingrich and Ansell (2012)
Argument

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 10

• Different social policies modify the degree to which individuals experience risk in the labour market and thus the importance of this risk in shaping individual preferences
• The fact that risk homogeneity is constructed by policies complicates the idea that risk homogeneity is crucial to determining policy outcomes

Question 11

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Gingrich and Ansell (2012)
Data/Methodology

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 11

They use data from the 2006 Role of Government International Security Survey Programme, which asks individuals questions about their preferences over government spending on several social policies

Question 12

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Gingrich and Ansell (2012)
Findings

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 12

• Employment protection legislation and employment independent benefits create more uniform social risk, and resultingly reduce the effect of risk in shaping preferences over social programs.
• Like Rehm et al, this suggests that when risk is more uniform and less correlated with a singular income group, this reduces polarity in preferences, however, it suggests that rather than shaping social policy this is shaped by social policy. It also contradicts Rehm et al’s claim that there is not so much of a risk of reverse causality in the area of unemployment insurance.

However: there is also potential for endogeneity here

Question 13

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Alesina and Glaeser (2004)
Argument

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 13

• It is the result of political institutions that people in the US are generally less supportive of welfare spending than people in European countries.
• Political institutions in the US such as the lack of proportional representation, the heavy emphasis on checks and balances, and feudalism all contribute towards the US having less funding for the welfare state.
• Increased proportionality in the electoral system means that more parties are likely to participate in a ruling coalition, and so they have an incentive to appeal to all citizens; therefore, governments are more likely to offer public goods to cater to the preferences of a large, diverse body of voters, enhancing support for the welfare state. In majoritarian systems, on the other hand, only a subset of citizens are pivotal to a party’s election so the incentive for parties is to provide club goods in the form of geographically targeted ‘pork barrel’ spending programs, lowering support for the welfare state.

Question 14

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Alesina and Glaeser (2004)
Data and Findings

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 14

• Restrict the dataset to OECD countries
• Greater electoral proportionality is highly correlated with the quantity of government transfers

Question 15

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Baumberg-Geiger et al (2023)

Support for Welfare Affected by Existing Policy/Institutional Contexts

Answer 15

• In the UK, the sharp change in the Labour Party’s rhetoric on welfare led to sharp rises in anti-welfare attitudes, especially among Labour voters
• The UK public is split in their support for welfare spending, with 37% expressing their support and 33% expressing disapproval

Question 16

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Fernández and Jaime-Castillo, (2018)
Argument

Economic Self-Interest (but Institutional Context matters)

Answer 16

When there is more redistribution, this increases class cleavages

Two possible approaches:
* A self-interest approach claims that institutional contexts determine the costs and benefits of different actions, so that actors will maximise their personal rewards; higher redistribution increases the capacities of lower classes to fight for further equality enhancing programs, whilst for upper-classes, redistribution decreases their income advantages, meaning that redistribution should expand the pro-redistribution attitudes of lower classes and have the converse effect for higher-classes
* A normative approach, on the other hand, claims that institutions and policies affect political attitudes by transforming dominant beliefs in a society; in this view, more funded welfare states should promote the principle of reciprocity, undercutting and weakening class divides and making everyone more supportive of redistribution

They take a self-interest approach

Question 17

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Fernández and Jaime-Castillo, (2018)
Data/Methodology

Economic Self-Interest (but Institutional Context matters)

Answer 17

In their analysis, Fernández and Jaime-Castillo control for gender, age, age-squared, unemployed, not in the labour force, and religiosity, all of which are determinants of pro-redistribution attitudes
(however: they do not control for education, which as Mcarthur points out, can also be a determinant of pro-redistribution analysis, as those who are more highly educated are more sympathetic towards welfare recipients)

Question 18

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Fernández and Jaime-Castillo, (2018)
Findings

Economic Self-Interest (but Institutional Context matters)

Answer 18

• Fernández and Jaime-Castillo find evidence to support their hypothesis that an increase in redistribution produces a greater different between social classes in redistributive preferences, which supports the self-interest approach
• The ability of political rhetoric to set norms, likely depends on contexts of economic security or insecurity.

Question 19

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Alesina and Glaeser (2004)
Argument

Social Solidarity

Answer 19

• Higher degree of racial and ethnic fragmentation is partly responsible for the lower degree of support for the welfare state in the US
• Racial divisions deter redistribution, especially when poverty is concentrated in minority groups.
• Hatred for minority groups is created by politicians to build support for their policies. Racial division makes it easier to demonize the poor as being some members of hated minority and reduce support for the welfare state (requires that there is some correlation between income and minority ethnic/racial group membership)

Question 20

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Alesina and Glaeser (2004)
Findings

Social Solidarity

Answer 20

• There is a strong correlation between racial fractionalisation and social spending as a percentage of GDP and a 10% rise in racial fractionalisation leads to a 1.4% drop in share of spending on social services, suggesting that the gap in racial fractionalisation can explain up to two-thirds of the gap between US and European welfare spending. (Correlation remains, but at a weaker level, when the same regression is run again with countries with a GDP per capita exceeding 15000 USD.)
• People are more generous towards members of their own ethnic group than others, American cities with more fragmented communities have lower provision of public goods, and states with a lower share of African-Americans offer more generous welfare benefits.
• Survey data also shows that Americans are more likely to think that the poor are lazy and could escape poverty with hard work, whereas Europeans are more likely to think the poor are unfortunate. This would also impact people’s beliefs about welfare spending, as those who think poverty is due to lack of effort are less likely to think people are deserving of welfare.

Question 21

Public Support for Welfare Provision

Baldwin and Huber (2010)

Social Solidarity

Answer 21

Argument:
* The effect of ethnic fractionalisation on welfare spending is driven by income disparities between different ethnic groups

Data/Methodology:
* Examine economic data from the Afrobarometer, WVS, and CSES surveys across for 46 countries across 5 continents

Findings:
* There is a strong correlation between between-group economic differences and lower public goods provision.