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Unequal and Unsupportive: Exposure to Poor People Weakens Support for Redistribution among the Rich

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2024-04-19 18:00:07

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Do the rich become more or less supportive of redistribution when exposed to poor people in their local surroundings? Most existing observational studies find that exposure to poor individuals is positively associated with support for redistribution among the well-off, but one prominent field experiment found a negative link. We seek to resolve these divergent findings by employing a design closer to the studies that have found a positive link, but with more causal leverage than these; specifically, a three-wave panel survey linked with fine-grained registry data on local income composition in Denmark. In within-individual models, increased exposure to poor individuals is associated with lower support for redistribution among wealthy individuals. By contrast, between-individual models yield a positive relationship, thus indicating that self-selection based on stable individual characteristics likely explains the predominant finding in previous work.

Motivated by concerns over growing income inequality across developed democracies (Piketty and Saez Reference Piketty and Saez 2014), a large and growing literature has investigated the relationship between inequality and voters' support for redistribution (Condon and Wichowsky Reference Condon and Wichowsky 2020; Kenworthy and McCall Reference Kenworthy and McCall 2008; Lupu and Pontusson Reference Lupu and Pontusson 2011). The nature of this relationship is crucial because voters can—via their policy preferences that animate politicians to enact policies—contribute to both the amelioration (Meltzer and Richard Reference Meltzer and Richard 1981) and the aggravation of economic inequality (Kelly and Enns Reference Kelly and Enns 2010) depending on how they respond to it.