More than self-interest: Why different classes have different attitudes to income inequality.

Peter Egge Langsæther,Geoffrey Evans

doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12747

Peter Egge Langsæther, Geoffrey Evans

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12747

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Abstract

The connection between social class and political preferences is among the most well established in the social sciences. This association is typically taken as prima facie evidence of economic self-interest: Classes hold different attitudes, values, and party preferences because they have different economic interests. However, this assumption has rarely been tested empirically. In this article, we use survey data from 18 West European countries to examine why classes differ on a central aspect of political preferences, namely their views on the desirability of income inequality. We find that only a moderate proportion of differences between employee classes in support for redistribution can be accounted for by contemporary differences in resources and risks; differences in economic interests to some degree account for the anti-redistributive preferences of the professional middle classes compared with the working class. However, the preferences of the self-employed have a different explanation; autonomy is a better explanation of the right-wing preferences of the self-employed compared with the working class.

Highlights

Discussions of class differences in political preferences have been extensive since the early days of social science
Class voting has received most attention, studies of class differences in political attitudes, those concerning inequality and redistribution, have accumulated an extensive bibliography. This is no accident, as concern with inequality and redistribution typically lies at the heart of class politics, and conflict over inequality and its amelioration via redistribution has historically provided the axis of many Western party systems
Our first aim in this paper, is to redress this omission in the understanding of class politics. We do this by examining the importance of economic selfinterest for all Western European countries with respect to the area of political preference that is most likely to be affected by material interests, namely income inequality

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Discussions of class differences in political preferences have been extensive since the early days of social science. Previous studies have not considered this issue and have tended to use composite measures of class differences (i.e., the kappa index—see Brooks & Svallfors, 2010) that do not distinguish how mechanisms might work differently for different classes This leads to our first hypothesis: Hypothesis 1 Economic interests can account for differences in support for redistribution between the middle and working classes, but are less likely to do so for differences between the self-employed and the workers. To test the above hypotheses, we rely on the European Values Study (EVS, 2008–10), which covers all the West European countries and includes a measure of redistribution preferences, suitable class measures for both current class and class origins (see below), and a range of relevant variables capturing aspects of the different mechanisms for explaining class differences in preferences.1 These include perceived job autonomy, income, unemployment experience, and social security dependence. Respondents are asked “[h]ow free are you to make decisions in your job?” and may indicate any value from 1 (which reads “none at all”) to 10 (“a great deal”)

| Methodology

Findings

| CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION