Over the past few decades, European societies have witnessed unprecedented increases in inequalities in wealth and income. Faced with more flexible labour markets, skill-based technological change, ongoing demographic change and migration, European welfare models have been unable to effectively address these rising inequalities. Accordingly, inequalities in wealth, income, education and other social resources and their consequences for social cohesion, redistribution, and democracy more generally have attracted attention, both in academic and public debate.
While some argue that increasing inequalities are always harmful and serve as proof of growing injustices in society, others see a certain degree of inequality as a necessary component of a market economy. They argue that differences in individual talents, investments made in one’s own education, or even motivation must be rewarded. Whether inequalities are large or small, good or bad, just or unjust, always seems to depend on the normative perspective from which they are illuminated. Empirical justice research shows that people differ in their preference for certain distributions and distribution rules and thus ultimately also in their perception and evaluation of existing inequalities.
This session proposes to attract and showcase some of the recent scholarship developed with the most important survey data about empirical justice produced up to date in terms of population coverage and cross-country comparability. The ESS Round 9 module - Justice and Fairness in Europe: Coping with Growing Inequalities and Heterogeneities - emphasized the aforementioned issues and allowed for the in-depth study of justice perceptions across Europe. The module, which was fielded in 2018/2019, allows the study of perceptions of justice for self and others regarding different outcomes such as income, wealth, education and job chances. Drawing on this rich pool of information, this session calls for contribution focusing on the normative views people hold on the principles that should guide the fair allocation of goods and burdens within a society, the fairness of incomes for self and for others, the fairness of life chances, and the fairness of related political procedures.
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Perceived procedural injustice as motivator of different forms of political participation in European old and new democracies
Renata Franc, Tomislav Pavlović, Marina Maglić
Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar, Croatia
According to the group engagement model of social justice, being treated fairly in a group, organization, or society enhances willingness to advocate for collective interests. At the same, according to the system justification theory, system justification motivation can increase perceptions of procedural justice and consequently lower the motivation for behaviours aimed at social change.
In this study, we will explore whether political procedural justice and system justification motivation (belief in a just world) together with internal political efficacy (interactively) explain previous protest political participation and voting after controlling for participants’ gender, age, residence type and education. The analyses of data from the ESS Round 9 (2018/2019) were conducted separately on two groups of European countries (17 European old democracies and 12 European new democracies (with the exclusion of Cyprus) by using structural equation modelling (SEM) with cluster-robust standard errors (using countries as clusters) and the double mean-centred product-indicator approach to operationalizing latent interactions in R.
In both types of countries individuals with higher political self-efficacy self-reported higher activism and voting. Participants perceiving stronger procedural injustice were slightly more likely to engage in activism (but not voting) in old democracies, while no such relationship was established in the new democracies. Participants exhibiting a higher belief in a just world were less likely to participate in activism and voting in old democracies. In new democracies, however, such participants were only slightly less likely to engage in activism.
Additionally, the analyses yielded a significant three-way interaction in old democracies in the case of activism: among participants with a low and moderate belief in a just world, individuals perceiving more procedural injustice reported higher levels of activism if their political self-efficacy was high. Contrarily, among participants high on belief in a just world, individuals below average or average on political self-efficacy exhibited higher activism as they perceived more procedural injustice. No relationship between procedural injustice and activism was established among individuals believing in a just world and who perceived themselves as high on political efficacy. Only the interaction between belief in a just world and political self-efficacy in the prediction of activism was confirmed in the sample of new democracies – positive relationship between political self-efficacy and activism was stronger among individuals exhibiting lower belief in a just world. On the other hand, a significant interaction between perceived procedural injustice and belief in a just world was established in the case of voting. Among participants with lower beliefs in a just world, higher perceived injustice is related to lower electoral past participation. In contrast, among those believing in a just world, higher perceived injustice is related to higher electoral past participation.
These cross-country quantitative results regarding the role of perceived justice in new democracies are expanded with qualitative findings based on semi structured interviews conducted in 2024 in Croatia with activist and members of general population.
Redistribution comes at a cost: the justice of workers’ contributions to welfare
Cristóbal Moya1,2, Carsten Sauer2
1DIW Berlin; 2Universität Bielefeld
This study examines to what extent workers evaluate their contributions to welfare redistribution as just or unjust, advancing political economy models that tackle how self-interest and altruism influence redistribution preferences. We develop a framework to investigate workers' support for contributing to welfare at their own expense based on the justice evaluations of their actual earnings before and after paying taxes and social security contributions. These models are extended by considering the normative underpinnings of welfare contributions’ evaluations. We show that along with evidence for self-interest, with higher income inequality, the poorest workers evaluate their contributions to welfare redistribution as more unjust. Support for norms of equity and need matter for the evaluations of welfare contributions, and political trust positively influences welfare contributions’ evaluations. Our results suggest that assessing the personal cost of redistribution and the normative interplay of individuals with welfare regimes is important for implementing or sustaining redistributive policies.
In addition to aligning with long-standing evidence regarding self-interested motives in people’s perspective on welfare and redistribution, our results provide two contributions to debates on redistribution preferences and welfare regimes. First, income inequality matters for understanding individuals' support for welfare redistribution, but in a different sense from what the income-dependent altruism model proposes (Dimick, Rueda, and Stegmueller 2018). It is only for the poorest workers that income inequality makes a difference, as in more unequal countries, this group is more likely to evaluate as unjust their contribution to redistribution as compared to more equal countries.
We used data from 29 countries that participated in the ninth round of the European Social Survey. We restrict the sample to individuals working for pay, given our focus on workers’ justice evaluation of their contribution to welfare redistribution. The total number of respondents working for pay was 26,611 (ranging from 408 to 1,387 per country). Appendix A shows the sample size by country and the descriptive statistics.
We used logistic multilevel models to analyze the probability of evaluating the contribution to welfare redistribution as just. Our framework exploits the relation between the justice evaluations of gross and net earnings, displaying that both are close, yet different: when partialling out the justice evaluation of gross earnings, we can model the part of the justice evaluation of the net earnings that do not stem from the assessment of the labor market distribution of earnings, i.e., we obtain the justice evaluation of the individual contribution to welfare redistribution. Furthermore, we used mixed-effects models to account for the self-contained welfare regime of countries and the nesting of individuals within them.
Western Balkan Bucks and Gender Luck: Exploring Gender Differences in Fairness Evaluations of Personal Earnings in the Western Balkans
Jelena Riznić
Institute of Social Sciences, Serbia
This paper explores the gender differences in fairness evaluations of own earnings in the Western Balkans region. The study aims to understand how individuals perceive the fairness of their earnings based on their gender in four Western Balkan countries – Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia. The research utilizes a quantitative approach, based on data collected from these countries as part of the 2018 European Social Survey (Round 9). The role of the occupational context analyzes wage fairness perceptions, and how it moderates gender differences in fairness perceptions. The findings reveal significant gender disparities in fairness evaluations, with women tending to perceive their earnings as less fair compared to men. Also, since all four countries are former Yugoslav states, this paper will examine potential factors contributing to these differences, such as societal norms, cultural expectations, and economic disparities. The different development paths of these countries after the breakup of Yugoslavia impacted the degree of gender equality and the understanding of the position of women in society. Understanding these gender differences in fairness evaluations can provide valuable insights for policymakers and organizations seeking to promote gender equality and address income disparities in the Western Balkans region
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