Unjust Income Inequality Prevails Across 29 Countries

Abstract

The aim of this visualization is to describe justice evaluations of income inequality from a cross-country perspective for more than 72,000 respondents in 29 countries. The analyses were based on data from two large, cross-country survey programs. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) asked for an evaluation of the overall income distribution, and the European Social Survey (ESS) asked for justice evaluations of both bottom and top incomes. The authors find that injustice of the income distribution prevails in all studied countries except Denmark and that injustice of bottom incomes prevails in all countries. Moreover, in the countries included in both the ISSP and ESS, the share of respondents evaluating the overall income distribution as just always falls between the share evaluating bottom and top incomes as just. These results suggest that depending on the country context, different parts of the distribution (top and bottom incomes) influence its overall evaluation.

Description

Income inequality is a key societal challenge. It is of particular concern when evaluated as unjust (Starmans, Sheskin, and Bloom 2017). Sociological justice research emphasizes that perceptions and evaluations of unjust inequality translate into far-reaching consequences for individuals and societies, such as reduced well-being, health, and social cohesion (Jasso 2015; Liebig and Sauer 2016). Previous research has studied why income inequality is evaluated as just or unjust, stressing the role of shared norms, inequality aversion, and self-interest (Trump 2020). This research, however, focuses mainly on the United States and lacks empirical evidence about justice evaluations of income inequality from a cross-country perspective. The few international comparisons related to justice of inequality tackle it only indirectly, focusing on the just pay of specific occupations (Kelley and Evans 2021). This visualization provides the first step in establishing a cross-country comparison of evaluations of income inequality in terms of justice.

In this visualization (Figure 1), we show the share of people who evaluated income inequality as just in 29 countries. Two large cross-country survey programs have recently included questions on justice evaluations of income inequality, using two different measurement approaches. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) (2019–2021) asked for a justice evaluation of the overall income distribution within a country. The European Social Survey (ESS) (2018–2020), on the other hand, asked for justice evaluations of the top and bottom deciles of the income distribution in each country. On the basis of the latter approach, the justice evaluation of income inequality can be derived from how people assess both poles of the income distribution. These two approaches provide complementary perspectives on how people make sense of income inequality in their countries. Seventeen countries participated in both the ISSP and ESS, allowing us to compare evaluations of the overall income distribution with evaluations of top and bottom incomes, providing insights on how the evaluations of top and bottom incomes relate to people’s assessment of the full distribution.

Figure 1.

Percentages of respondents within each country who evaluate as just the income from the bottom decile of their country (blue), the income distribution of their country (orange), and the income from the top decile of their country (red).

In only 1 of the 29 countries examined, Denmark, most respondents assessed the income distribution as just. Furthermore, Northern European countries, along with Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States, show a relatively high share of people who assessed the income distribution as just, followed by Western European countries. In the Latin American countries investigated (Suriname, Chile, and Venezuela), and the Eastern and Southern European countries, almost everyone evaluated the income distribution as unjust. Most people in each country evaluated bottom incomes as unjust, and these evaluations are consistent with the very low prevalence of justice in Eastern and Southern European countries (Lithuania, Italy, Croatia, and Bulgaria). Justice evaluations of top incomes show less consistent regional patterns, but in all countries, respondents evaluated bottom incomes less often as just than top incomes.

In countries where both types of evaluation are available, the share of those who evaluated the overall income distribution as just falls somewhere between the percentage share of people who evaluated bottom incomes and those who evaluated top incomes as just (also see Figure S1). In countries with small shares of people who evaluated the income distribution as just, it tends to approach the share of people who evaluated bottom incomes as just. In countries with relatively high shares of people who assessed the income distribution as just, it tends to align with the share of people who evaluated top incomes as just (Denmark, Norway, Australia, and Switzerland). This overview suggests that evaluations of the overall income distribution are influenced by different parts of the distribution, such as top and bottom incomes, depending on the country context. This implies that studies on the justice of income inequality should focus on both overall assessments and evaluations of specific parts of the income distribution.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231171581 – Supplemental material for Unjust Income Inequality Prevails Across 29 Countries

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231171581 for Unjust Income Inequality Prevails Across 29 Countries by Cristóbal Moya, Jule Adriaans and Carsten Sauer in Socius