A few people make all the difference – an international comparison of “fair” pay differentials

Abstract

Social inequality has long been an important topic of public debate in almost all societies in the world, but how much do people actually disagree and who is that does? This paper uses all five waves of International Social Survey Programme data (1987 to 2019) to compare attitudes toward “fair” pay ratios in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Great Britain, the USA, and Russia. Although respondents generally underestimate the actual size of current earnings gaps, in all countries an overwhelming egalitarian majority agrees that “income differences are too large”. As well, since the ISSP has also asked respondents how much different occupations “should earn”, one can compare the fair pay ratios. In all countries, for all years examined, fair pay ratios are (a) remarkably small and (b) remarkably similar for roughly 80% of the population. Cross-country differences in average attitudes do not occur due to higher general levels of support for income inequality but are rather concentrated in the “inegalitarian few”. Our analysis of cross-country differences in attitudes toward inequality, therefore, concentrates on how the inegalitarian few differ from the egalitarian many, to differing degrees in different countries, to better explain the political tensions underlying differences in redistribution in market economies.