We argue that support for redistribution increases when one experiences “positional deprivation,” situations when one’s own income increases slower or decreases faster compared to that of others. This specific combination of economic suffering over-time and relative to others has effects beyond well-studied measures of suffering that are static and/or absolute in nature, such as income level. We empirically explore this hypothesis by using “objective-material” measures of positional deprivation derived from the Luxembourg Income Studies and the European Social Survey, and by using “subjective” measures derived from an original survey in 13 European countries. We find that those whose income growth is outpaced by the average and/or richest members of their country are more likely to support redistribution. We also find that the objective and subjective measures of positional deprivation are significantly correlated, and that positional deprivation’s fostering of support for redistribution holds above-and-beyond static and/or absolute measures of economic experience.
AlesinaA.StantchevaS.TesoE. (2018). Intergenerational mobility and preferences for redistribution. American Economic Review, 108(2), 521–554. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20162015
3.
BeramendiP.RehmP. (2016). Who gives, who gains? Progressivity and preferences. Comparative Political Studies, 49(4), 529–563. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015617961
4.
BesleyT.CoateS. (1991). Public provision of private goods and the redistribution of income. American Economic Review, 81(4), 979–984. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2006658
BradleyD.HuberE.MollerS.NielsenF.StephensJ. D. (2003). Distribution and redistribution in postindustrial democracies. World Politics, 55(2), 193–228. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2003.0009
7.
Brown-IannuzziJ. L.LundbergK. B.KayA. C.PayneB. K. (2015). Subjective status shapes political preferences. Psychological Science, 26(1), 15–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553947
8.
BurgoonB.BauteS.van NoortS. (2022). Replication data for “positional deprivation and support for redistribution and social insurance in Europe”. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JBTT3G, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:BiqFj2hxNnIdLbM2cJBQpw== [fileUNF]
9.
BurgoonB.van NoortS.RooduijnM.UnderhillG. (2019). Positional deprivation and support for radical right and radical left parties. Economic Policy, 34(97), 49–93. https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eiy017
ChettyR.GruskyD.HellM.HendrenN.ManducaR.NarangJ. (2017). The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940. Science, 356(6336), 398–406. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4617
CondonM.WichowskyA. (2020). Inequality in the social mind: Social comparison and support for redistribution. The Journal of Politics, 82(1), 149–161. https://doi.org/10.1086/705686
CusackT. R.IversenT.RehmP. (2008). Economic shocks inequality and popular support for redistribution. In BeramendiP.AndersonC. J. (Eds.), Democracy, inequality and representation in comparative perspective (pp. 203–231). Russell Sage Foundation.
17.
Esping-AndersenG. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton University Press.
18.
Fernández-AlbertosJ.KuoA. (2016). Economic hardship and policy preferences in the Eurozone periphery: Evidence from Spain. Comparative Political Studies, 49(7), 874–906. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414016633224
GalliceA.GrilloE. (2020). Economic and social-class voting in a model of redistribution with social concerns. Journal of the European Economic Association, 18(6), 3140–3172. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz061
GugushviliA. (2019). A multilevel analysis of perceived intergenerational mobility and welfare state preferences. International Journal of Social Welfare, 28(1), 16–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.12316
24.
GuillaudE. (2013). Preferences for redistribution: An empirical analysis over 33 countries. Journal of Economic Inequality, 11(1), 57–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-011-9205-0
25.
HallerödB. (2006). Sour grapes: Relative deprivation, adaptive preferences and the measurement of poverty. Journal of Social Policy, 35(3), 371–390. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279406009834
26.
HaririJ. G.JensenS. S.LassenD. D. (2020). Middle class without a net: Saving, financial fragility, and preferences over social insurance. Comparative Political Studies, 53(6), 892–922. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019879718
HäusermannS.KurerT.TraberD. (2019). The politics of trade-offs: Studying the dynamics of welfare state reform with conjoint experiments. Comparative Political Studies, 52(7), 1059–1095. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414018797943
29.
HicksA. (1999). Social democracy and welfare capitalism: A century of income security politics. Cornell University Press.
30.
HicksA. M.SwankD. H. (1992). Politics, institutions, and welfare spending in industrialized democracies, 1960–1982. American Political Science Review, 86(3), 658–674. https://doi.org/10.2307/1964129
31.
HirschmanA. O.RothschildM. (1973). The changing tolerance for income inequality in the course of economic development. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(4), 544–566. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882024
32.
IversenT.CusackT. R. (2000). The causes of welfare state expansion: Deindustrialization or globalization?World Politics, 52(3), 313–349. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887100016567
JaegerM. M. (2006). What makes people support public responsibility for welfare provision: Self-interest or political ideology? A longitudinal approach. Acta Sociologica, 49(3), 321–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699306067718
35.
JerrimJ.MacmillanL. (2015). Income inequality, intergenerational mobility, and the great gatsby curve: Is education the key?Social Forces, 94(2), 505–533. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov075
36.
KevinsA.HornA.JensenD.van KersbergenK. (2018). Yardsticks of inequality: Preferences for redistribution in advanced democracies. Journal of European Social Policy, 28(4), 402–418. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928717753579
37.
KurerT. (2020). The declining middle: Occupational change, social status, and the populist right. Comparative Political Studies, 53(10–11), 1798–1835. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020912283
38.
LaknerC.MilanovicB. (2016). Global income distribution: From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the great recession. The World Bank Economic Review, 30(2), 203–232. https://doi.org/10.18601/01245996.v17n32.03
39.
Lewis-BeckM. S.StegmaierM. (2013). The VP-function revisited: A survey of the literature on vote and popularity functions after over 40 years. Public Choice, 157(3–4), 367–385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0086-6
40.
LinosK.WestM. (2003). Self-interest, social beliefs, and attitudes to redistribution: Re-Addressing the issue of cross-national variation. European Sociological Review, 19(4), 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/19.4.393
41.
LupuN.PontussonJ. (2011). The structure of inequality and the politics of redistribution. American Political Science Review, 105(2), 316–336. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055411000128
42.
MaddalaG. S. (1983). Limited dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics. Cambridge University Press.
43.
MargalitY. M. (2013). Explaining social policy preferences: Evidence from the great recession. American Political Science Review, 107(1), 80–103. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055412000603
44.
MeltzerA. H.RichardS. F. (1981). A rational theory of the size of government. Journal of Political Economy, 89(5), 914–927. https://doi.org/10.1086/261013
45.
MoeneK. O.WallersteinM. (2001). Inequality, social insurance, and redistribution. American Political Science Review, 95(4), 859–874. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055400400067
46.
MutzD. C.MondakJ. J. (1997). Dimensions of sociotropic behavior: Group-based judgements of fairness and well-being. American Journal of Political Science, 41(1), 284–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111717
47.
NannestadP.PaldamM. (1994). The VP-function: A survey of the literature on vote and popularity functions after 25 years. Public Choice, 79(3), 213–245. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01047771
48.
NaumannE. (2018). Tax constraints, social policy preferences, and support for redistribution. Societies, 8(3), 46–57. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8030046
PikettyT.SaezE.ZucmanG. (2018). Distributional national accounts: Methods and estimates for the United States. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(2), 553–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjx043
51.
RainerH.SiedlerT. (2008). Subjective income and employment expectations and preferences for redistribution. Economics Letters, 99(3), 449–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2007.09.011
RuedaD. (2008). Left government, policy, and corporatism: Explaining the influence of partisanship on inequality. World Politics, 60(3), 349–389. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887100009035
56.
RuncimanW. G. (1966). Relative deprivation and social justice: A study of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/589189
57.
SchumakerP.DwightK.HeilkeT. W. (1996). Great ideas/grand schemes: Political ideologies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. McGraw-Hill.
58.
ShariffA. F.WiwadD.AkninL. B. (2016). Income mobility breeds tolerance for income inequality: Cross-national and experimental evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(3), 373–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616635596
59.
SmithH. J.PettigrewT. F.PippinG. M.BialosiewiczS. (2012). Relative deprivation: A theoretical and meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(3), 203–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311430825
SvallforsS. (1997). Worlds of welfare and attitudes to redistribution: A comparison of eight Western nations. European Sociological Review, 13(3), 283–304. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.esr.a018219
63.
VandenbrouckeF.BurgoonB.KuhnT.NicoliF.SacchiS.van der DuinD.HegewaldS. (2018). Risk sharing when unemployment hits: How policy design influences citizen support for European unemployment risk sharing (EURS). Policy report. AISSR, University of Amsterdam.
64.
VeblenT. (1909). The limitations of marginal utility. Journal of Political Economy, 17(9), 620–636. https://doi.org/10.1086/251614
WagléU. R. (2008). Multidimensional poverty: An alternative measurement approach for the United States?Social Science Research, 37(2), 559–580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2007.06.013
67.
WalkerI.PettigrewT. F. (1984). Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique. British Journal of Social Psychology, 23(4), 301–310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1984.tb00645.x
68.
WalterS. (2010). Globalization and the welfare state: Testing the microfoundations of the compensation hypothesis. International Studies Quarterly, 54(2), 403–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2010.00593.x
69.
WeisstannerD. (2022). Income growth and preferences for redistribution: The role of absolute and relative economic experiences. European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.1252
70.
YitzhakiS. (1979). Relative deprivation and the gini coefficient. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 93(2), 321–324. https://doi.org/10.2307/1883197
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
