16:50 - 18:30
P5
Room:
Room: South Room 224
Panel Session 5
Tom O'Grady, Andreas Wiedemann - How Geographic Sorting by the Middle Classes Threatens Redistributive Coalitions
Matthias Haslberger - House Price Inequality and Political Efficacy
Bilyana Petrova - Income Composition Inequality and Preferences for Economic Redistribution
Federico Fuchs - Policy Preferences and Organizational Representation in the Informal Economy
Income Composition Inequality and Preferences for Economic Redistribution
P5-3
Presented by: Bilyana Petrova
Bilyana Petrova
Texas Tech University
Who supports the welfare state is a question that has attracted considerable scholarly attention in Political Science. Focusing on different contexts, using different data, and drawing on different methods, existing scholarship has identified a number of factors that meaningfully predict welfare state attitudes. Although the literature has explored the effect of different types of asset ownership, much remains unknown about the way in which the distribution of wealth shapes preferences for redistribution. This article examines the impact of income composition inequality - or the degree to which income composition per se varies across the income distribution - on preferences for economic redistribution. I argue that citizens living in countries characterized by high income composition inequality, which denotes an economic system where the rich rely exclusively on capital income while the poor only earn labor income, are more in favor of a generous welfare state than people living in economies defined by low income composition inequality. This is because low income composition inequality is associated with greater dependence on other sources of income and lower exposure to employment risk. Nevertheless, this effect is conditional on respondents' income and education. Drawing on a novel database that further enriches our understanding of capital and labor income ownership in Europe, I test my hypothesis with individual- and aggregate-level data from 22 European countries between 2004 and 2018.