FRom the oh-so-useful Johnson's Russia List
Chris Doss The Russia Journal ----------------------------
JRL RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT Issue No. 6 April 2002 Editor: Stephen D. Shenfield shenfield at neaccess.net
8. ATTITUDES TOWARD INCOME INEQUALITY
SOURCE. Marc Suhrcke, "Preferences for Inequality: East vs. West." Innocenti Working Paper No. 89. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2001 [www.unicef-icdc.org]
"Are income differences in your country too large?" This was one of the questions asked of 29,198 people in 23 countries under the 1999 International Social Survey Programme. The author analyzes the answers in order to test a range of hypotheses concerning the determinants of public attitudes toward income inequality.
Included in the survey were 7 postcommunist European countries (Russia, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovenia), 10 other European countries (Britain, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Spain, and Portugal), 4 developed countries outside Europe (Canada, Japan, Israel, and New Zealand), and two Third World countries (Chile and the Philippines). A pity that the United States was not included!
In every country surveyed, a clear majority, ranging from 55 per cent in Switzerland up to 96 per cent in Russia and Portugal and 97 per cent in Bulgaria, either "agree" or "strongly agree" that income differences in their country are too large. The proportion of those who "strongly agree" ranges from 16 per cent in the Netherlands up to 79 per cent in Russia, 82 per cent in Portugal, and 84 per cent in Bulgaria.
There is a strong tendency for the proportion of people expressing disapproval of existing income differences to be higher in postcommunist countries than elsewhere. After correcting for other factors, the author concludes that this tendency is indeed attributable mainly to the enduring influence on people's attitudes of the socialist legacy.
There is, however, an interesting twist. Three Western countries also show a very broad opposition to existing income inequality which is more typical of the postcommunist countries than of other Western countries. One of these countries, as we have seen, is Portugal. The others are Israel and France, with 90 and 87 per cent respectively who "agree" or "strongly agree" that income differences in their country are too large. One wishes that the author had devoted some attention to explaining this curious result.
What are the determinants of individuals' attitudes toward income inequality?
Women are more likely than men to oppose income inequality. Old people are more likely to oppose it than young people. People who believe that high incomes in their country go to those who are the most capable and work the hardest are more tolerant of inequality than people who do not believe this. People living in countries where income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) is greater tend to be more opposed to existing inequality than people living in countries where income inequality is not so great.
Equally unsurprising is the finding that people who have high incomes, or who expect to earn high incomes in the future, tend to be more favorably disposed toward income inequality than people with low incomes. But this tendency is weaker than might be expected if people were motivated solely by their direct material interests. The author's statistical analysis suggests that many people see a high level of income inequality as a social evil to be opposed irrespective of their own place on the socio-economic ladder.