Welfare Preferences Research Articles

Re-evaluating the welfare preferences of radical-right voters: evidence from a vignette experiment

Research on the welfare stances of populist radical-right parties (PRRPs) cate­gorises them as ‘welfare chauvinists’ and ‘producerists’, supporting generous benefits exclusively for ‘hard-working’ nationals. However, it remains unclear whether their voters’ welfare preferences align with these positions. The argument advanced in this paper is that a comprehensive understanding of PRRP voters’ welfare preferences requires the examination of how solidarity and perceptions of welfare claimant deservingness interact. Thus, this article employs a factorial vignette survey experiment to evaluate the interplay between solidarity and deservingness perceptions among PRRP voters. Contrary to previous research, results show that PRRP voters do not exhibit stronger producerist attitudes; instead, they mostly stand out as particularly nativists. While PRRP voters exhibit significantly less solidarity towards welfare claimants deemed ‘least’ and ‘average-deserving’ than other partisans, they are not more solidaristic towards the ‘most deserving’ claimant. These findings challenge existing understanding of deservingness perceptions of PRRP voters, providing a new perspective on the study of their welfare attitudes.

Uncovering the Interplay Between Social Welfare Preferences and Society 5.0 Achievement: Implications for Sustainable Development

Abstract The paper delves into the concept of Society 5.0, which envisions a future society integrating advanced technologies with human-centred values to address current social challenges. It emphasizes the importance of aligning advanced technologies with human-centred values and social preferences to ensure the success and sustainability of Society 5.0. We offer comprehensive insights into the complex interplay between social welfare preferences and societal progress, emphasizing the significance of understanding and addressing societal preferences to foster inclusive, sustainable, and efficient societies aligned with the objectives of Society 5.0. The findings provide valuable guidance for policymakers and stakeholders in developing targeted interventions and policies that address critical societal challenges and foster progress across various well-being dimensions. The study emphasizes the importance of considering social preferences in the development of Society 5.0 and highlights the need for a holistic approach that integrates social preferences into the development framework. The study unveils that economic success does not guarantee societal advancement, as the array of social preferences reflecting the diversity of SWP impacts a country’s trajectory towards Society 5.0. By combining theoretical and empirical methodologies, we offer robust qualitative and quantitative insights for crafting optimal policies across different scenarios of individual SWPs and their effects on achieving social progress

Fiscal implications of the populist radical right in power

ABSTRACT Fiscal preferences of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) typically entail a combination of lower tax rates and the maintenance of costly social spending categories, such as pension spending. Theoretically, this combination is doomed to inflate future public liabilities. In our mixed method study, we assess whether PRRPs in government indeed systematically cause higher deficits and to what extent the combination of tax and social policy explains their public finance. We theoretically discuss the evolution of tax policy and welfare preferences of PRRPs and contend that radical right fiscal preferences are driven by PRRPs’ ideological core claim of ‘native producerist deservingness’. Based on mixed effects models with entropy balanced weights, we show that PRRPs in government have significantly and substantially higher public deficits than governments without PRRPs and similar socio-economic starting conditions. This effect, however, is different in Eastern Europe, where PRRPs in government produce comparatively lower deficits, albeit signalling and implementing the same policy-mix as Western PRRPs. We trace the causes of the differences in outcome with an in-depth case study of the Fidesz government in Hungary from 2010 to 2014.

Ideology, Information, and Social Welfare Preferences

Research shows that Americans have a generally poor understanding of welfare programs. Providing information about such programs has the potential to shape public preferences, but we argue that such effects may differ based on the content of the information and its correspondence with existing ideological beliefs. Using original survey experiments embedded in the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we analyze how the relationship of ideology with welfare programs varies in response to different types of negative information about the program, and different descriptions of policy design. We find that information about inadequate benefits has a larger negative impact on welfare support for liberals than for conservatives but that both liberals and conservatives may be equally concerned about fraud and inefficiency. Other information about policy design has the expected conditional effect: state (as opposed to federal) funding and short time limits for benefits are more appealing to conservatives than liberals.

Labor market risks and welfare preferences: a bounded rationality approach

Abstract This study introduces a bounded rationality approach to welfare preference formation under exposure to labor market risks. It argues that risk exposure only increases welfare demand when it is reasonable to assume that workers are aware of their risk exposure and when future-related concerns are currently salient. Empirical analyses of longitudinal data from Switzerland and 28 European countries support the theory. Swiss workers only optimize their welfare preferences in a forward-looking manner when they become unemployed, and only the national unemployment rate is found to increase welfare demand in European countries. In contrast, a variety of risks on the occupational and individual level drawn from previous research are found to be unrelated with welfare preferences. The implication is that the risk exposure of employed workers may matter less for their welfare preferences and downstream political phenomena such as voting behavior than commonly expected.

Moving North and Coming Back: How Concerns about Different Types of Migrants Affect Social Policy Demands among Low- and High-Skilled Mexicans

Middle-income countries experience various types of migration: transients, emigrants, refugees, and returnees. Their domestic economy is especially influenced by refugees and returnees. Since returnees and refugees vary in access to social policy programs and in skill composition, different types of migration should vary in “threat potential” for social policy demands, with the low-skilled responding more negatively to refugees, while the high-skilled face greater competition from returning natives. We test our argument with original survey data from Mexico, distinguishing respondents’ concerns about two distinct streams of migration: Central Americans seeking refuge in Mexico and Mexicans returning from living in the United States. Surprisingly, we find that the low-skilled's welfare preferences suffer neither type of migration concern, whereas high-skilled Mexicans oppose expanding social welfare when concern about returnees is high. Social solidarity in the welfare state is most depressed by returning natives.

The COVID-crisis as an opportunity for welfare recalibration? Panel-data evidence on the effect of the COVID-crisis on welfare preferences in Spain, Germany, and Sweden

ABSTRACT The reform capacity of welfare states to adapt to the needs of post-industrial labour markets has been a key question of the welfare literature for the last two decades. In a context of austerity, such adaptations (retrenchment or recalibration) are notoriously difficult because of extremely high levels of support for existing policies, particularly old age pensions. We investigate how the recent economic shock caused by the COVID-pandemic has changed social policy preferences in three West European countries (Germany, Sweden, Spain). Relying on original panel data observing the relative support for social policies before and during the crisis, we show that support for old age pensions has dropped substantially relative to other social policies. This drop can be observed in all three countries and among all ideological and age groups. The drop is strongest among current and soon-to-be pensioners who in turn increased support for benefits to the working-age population. At the expense of pensions, the economic shock has especially boosted support for active labour market policies and (in Germany) childcare services. This shift of support from pensions to social investment policies might have opened up a window of opportunity for recalibrating welfare reforms.

Towards a nuanced understanding of anti-immigration sentiment in the welfare state – a program specific analysis of welfare preferences

The literature on immigration and the welfare state describes a trade-off between immigration and welfare support. We argue for a more nuanced view of welfare chauvinism that accounts for different motivational channels, specific welfare programs and particular population subgroups. First, we identify two separate characteristics of hostility towards immigrants that trigger welfare chauvinism: affective anti-migration sentiment that combines economic and cultural motives; and a ‘putative rational anti-migration sentiment’ that is driven by the fear that immigration could overburden the welfare state although immigrants themselves are not disliked or even appreciated. Second, running a program-specific analysis, we find that affective and ‘putative rational’ opposition to migration lower redistributive preferences towards the unemployed. On the contrary, affective anti-immigration sentiment even increases welfare affinity towards the elderly. We interpret this finding not as preferences for or against a specific welfare program but as implicit sympathy or antipathy for its recipients. Third, investigating the role of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) as the main source of welfare chauvinism, we find that PRRP supporters strongly prefer more redistribution towards a perceived native in-group: the elderly.

COVID-19 and social inequality in China: the local–migrant divide and the limits of social protections in a pandemic

Abstract The existing literature suggests that external shocks, such as pandemics, stimulate people’s demand for social protections and prompt them to favor short-term social consumption over long-term investments. However, this argument may not apply fully in a society with an urban–rural divide in addition to an unequal welfare system. Through a telephone survey conducted in July 2020, this study sought to investigate public opinions on the social policy response to the coronavirus disease pandemic in China. Quantitative evidence showed large economic hardship among the respondents, who expressed a strong expectation for labor market interventions instead of social assistance. This study reveals that the preexisting inequalities in people’s access to welfare benefits have led local residents and migrants to develop differential preferences for social policies. This attitudinal heterogeneity is illustrative of the inequalities in the Chinese welfare system as well as of the labor market dynamics that have resulted from massive internal migration and the informalization of the workforce. The division between locals and migrants in China’s urban welfare system has shaped a demarcation of welfare preferences between the two groups through peculiar interpretive feedback effects.

A Robin Hood for all: a conjoint experiment on support for basic income

ABSTRACT Support for universal basic income is one of the key conundrums of the politics of welfare reform. Research shows that the predictors of UBI favourability also explain support for other policy alternatives, which differ substantially from a UBI, like targeted or conditional cash transfers. What is attractive or objectionable about a UBI to individuals, and which policy alternatives does public opinion actually prefer? In this paper, I tackle these questions with a conjoint experiment conducted in Spain. The results show that the universality of UBI, i.e., the fact that it is given to everyone, is what generates opposition. On the other hand, its unconditionality or the idea that it does not attach any conditions to recipients, is not particularly unpopular. However, the results also reveal that progressive funding mechanisms and restricting eligibility criteria to citizens only, can boost approval for this policy. These results have far-reaching implications for the study of welfare preferences, UBI support and theories on deservingness.

Cabinet ministers and inequality

AbstractScholars and commentators increasingly wonder whether governments’ failure to address socio‐economic inequalities is the result of unequal representation. Recent literature on policy responsiveness in the United States and Europe finds evidence that party and parliamentary policy proposals and actual policy outcomes are closer to the preferences of the rich than of the poor. However, the extent and character of such unequal representation remains thinly understood. Among the most thinly understoodmechanismsare the political conditions that link socio‐economic inequalities to unequal representation. This paper thickens our understanding of (unequal) representation by investigating the class composition of parliamentary cabinets and its effect on social welfare policy. With the aid of a new dataset on cabinet ministers’ social class, the paper shows that responsiveness to the social welfare preferences of poorer voters varies by cabinet ministers’ professional backgrounds, above and beyond the partisan orientation of the government.

Theory and experiments on network games of public goods: inequality aversion and welfare preference

In this paper, we investigate social preferences in network games, where the network structure determines whose action affects the payoff of which player. We develop alternative theories that incorporate inequality aversion and welfare preference into the context of dominant-strategy network games, and test their implications in laboratory experiments. When the economic return is relatively low, we observe that subjects contribute more than the amount that would maximize their monetary profit; moreover, subjects at the central network positions contribute more than those at the periphery. These anomalies suggest that subject behavior is mainly driven by the welfare preference and not as much by either inequality aversion or self-interest, regardless of the network structures considered. In a supplemental experiment with an increased economic return, we find that the advantage of social preferences over self-interest in driving individual activities varies with the underlying network architecture. We also estimate the behavioral parameters and interpret the results in relation to the network topology.

Case C-336/19 Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België: Animal welfare and freedom of religion

Article 13 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) explicitly provides for animal welfare. Animals are sentient beings, and thus the EU and Member States have an obligation to take animal welfare into consideration. At the same time, Article 10(1) of the Charter guarantees freedom of religion. Case C-336/19 Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België dealt with the balance between animal welfare and freedom of religion. Regulation 1099/2009 stipulates that animals must be protected at the time of killing and established the principle of prior stunning in slaughter. Ritual slaughter based on religion is accepted as a derogation of this principle. In the Centraal case, which is pivotal in the context of ritual slaughter, the opinion of Advocate General Hogan and the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union were divided over the interpretation of the contested regulation. Ultimately, the Court demonstrated a definite preference for animal welfare over freedom of religion. In so doing, the Court attached a high value to national legislative competence and in paying attention to changes in society to ensure that citizens are increasingly aware of animal welfare.

Do welfare concerns drive electoral support for the populist radical right? An exploratory analysis

In this paper, we empirically investigate what kind of welfare concerns drive electoral support for radical right populist parties. The literature on the rise of populism in Western democracies argues that rising inequality is associated with more support for populist radical right parties. This leads to the assumption that populist radical right voters are in favour of more effective redistribution policies. We test this question using logistic regression analysis on the basis of the European Social Survey’s 2016 welfare module. We distinguish various forms of welfare preferences, which allow us to conclude that voters of radical right populist parties mainly tend to display welfare chauvinistic and socially conservative tendencies and are highly selective in the kind of programmes they support. While these parties' rhetoric in a number of cases now includes concern about inequality, we do not find this to be a major voting motive among these voters.

The compensation hypothesis goes east: FDI and welfare state demand in postcommunist countries

AbstractWhile existing research provides evidence that globalisation sparks citizen demand for the welfare state in wealthy Western democracies, less is known about how globalisation affects public demand for welfare elsewhere. This study explores the link between globalisation and welfare preferences in postcommunist countries by examining workers at multinational corporations (MNCs). These workers have previously been found to have lower levels of job security, even in Western Europe. Additionally, in the postcommunist context, MNC employment also frequently offers better opportunities than other available jobs. This combination of risk and benefit creates higher demand for social insurance (such as unemployment insurance) because MNC workers have both higher job insecurity and higher costs of job loss (if the benefits of MNC employment make it difficult to find an equally good job). Original survey data from Ukraine shows that MNC workers experience greater insecurity and are paid more than other workers. They also express preferences for more expansive welfare programmes, prioritising those related to labour market insurance. This pattern of MNC workers’ experience and preferences is confirmed in cross‐national survey data from 30 peripheral economies, demonstrating that the compensation hypothesis has wider application than previously shown.

Negotiation for Time Optimization in Construction Projects with Competitive and Social Welfare Preferences

Construction time optimization is affected greatly by the negotiation between owners and contractors, whose progress is dictated by their desire to maximize system revenues. This paper builds an agent‐based model and designs an experimental scenario in which the contractor has competitive and social welfare preferences relevant to the Chinese context; we subdivide competitive preference into greed and jealousy components and subdivide social welfare preference into generosity and sympathy components. We analyze the impacts of these different contractor preferences on the revenue‐sharing coefficient, negotiation success rate, and negotiation time when negotiation reaches agreement. The results show that the jealousy component of competitive preference has an important influence on improving the income of the subject, while the greed component does not significantly enhance the revenue‐sharing coefficient. The sympathy component of social welfare preference does not have an influence on the revenue‐sharing coefficient no matter the strength of the generosity component. Increasing the greed component of competitive preference will lead to the extension of negotiation time and, to a certain extent, to the reduction of the negotiation success rate; the sympathy component of social welfare preference does not have an influence on negotiation time no matter the strength of the generosity preference.

Racialized Preferences in Context: The Geography of White Opposition to Welfare

AbstractResearch has shown that white Americans oppose welfare spending in part due to their racial prejudices. Yet, this conventional wisdom ignores the importance of local geography in determining whether whites are likely to view welfare in racialized terms. This article demonstrates that the effect of prejudice on whites’ welfare preferences depends on the salience of welfare's racialized image in a given geographic context. I present a novel application of the racial threat hypothesis—conceptualizing both prejudice and place as multidimensional—to argue that the racial geography of an area amplifies the effect of traditional racial stereotypes on welfare preferences, whereas economic geography amplifies the effect of symbolically racist attitudes. I test these propositions using geocoded data from the years following the 1996 U.S. welfare policy reforms. My analysis reveals that racial attitudes are more predictive of welfare preferences not simply where the stigmas of welfare are salient due to a large black population or high poverty rate, but more specifically where residential segregation makes black or poor households more visible from the viewpoint of whites. These findings highlight the subjectivity of the white perspective, and call for more scholarship theorizing whites’ agency in seeing racialized issues as threatening to white interests.

Social Preferences in Network Games: Theory and Laboratory Evidence

This paper investigates social preferences in network games, where the network structure determines whose action affects the payoff of which player. We develop alternative theories that incorporate inequality aversion and welfare preference into the context of network games, and test their implications in a laboratory experiment. We observe that subjects contribute more than the amount that would maximize their monetary profit, and subjects at the central network positions contribute more than those at the periphery. These anomalies suggest that subject behavior is driven mainly by the welfare preference and not as much by either inequality aversion or self interest. We then estimate the behavioral parameters and interpret the results in relation to the network topology.

Factoring Chinese consumers’ risk perceptions into their willingness to pay for pork safety, environmental stewardship, and animal welfare

Consumers in China have grown increasingly concerned with the safety of their food as evidenced by the numerous media reports of foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years. Consumer confidence in food purchases can be improved through better labeling on food packaging. Chinese consumers' risk perceptions and how it impacts the valuation of a product's attributes in terms of price premiums are explored in this study. As pork is a staple meat in China, a choice modeling approach was used to quantify the economic value of labeling on pork for food safety, country of origin, environment practices, and animal welfare. Risk perceptions of becoming ill from imported or domestic pork were incorporated and willingness to pay (WTP) values were quantified. Results reveal that food safety has the greatest premium among all of the attributes, and incorporating risk perceptions leads to generally higher WTP values. We find evidence that Chinese urban consumers in large cities show a genuine preference for animal welfare and environmental stewardship, independent of the believed better taste and safety of meat from such production practices. Results imply that consumers not only gain the greatest utility from this labeling but also suggest that there is a latent demand for this product characteristic from which foreign and domestic pork producers can benefit.

Chinese preschoolers' resource allocation in the face of existing inequality under collaborative and noncollaborative contexts.

The current study investigated the stage at which Chinese preschoolers started considering recipients' material welfare and minimizing existing inequalities under both noncollaborative and collaborative contexts. Also, it analyzed how they behaved when recipients' material welfare was in conflict with merit or equality rule. Experiment 1 found that 4-year-old children allocated resources to the poor rather than the rich character only under the noncollaborative context but not under the collaborative context, in which they had observed these 2 characters working together to finish a task. By contrast, 5-year-old children started doing so under both collaborative and noncollaborative contexts. When there was conflict between recipients' material welfare and merit in Experiment 2, 6-year-old children did not show any preference for either material welfare or merit, and they made equal or almost equal distributions. Without collaboration information, Experiment 3 further revealed that the children aged from 4 to 6 y preferred equal distribution to resource allocation considering recipients' material welfare. These findings have been discussed in terms of contextual information and cultural influences. (PsycINFO Database Record