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First published online February 4, 2010

Public perceptions of the economic, moral, social and migration consequences of the welfare state: an empirical analysis of welfare state legitimacy

Wim van OorschotView all authors and affiliations
Volume 20, Issue 1
https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928709352538

Abstract

This article contributes to the scant knowledge about what people believe to be the economic, moral, social and migration consequences of the welfare state. Data from a 2006 Dutch survey show, first, that in the eyes of most Dutch people the positive social consequences of the welfare state outweigh the negative economic and moral consequences. Second, the personal interests that people may have in the provisions made by the welfare state, for instance arising from the level of their income, play a minor role in understanding differences in perceptions. Instead, a set of ideational determinants proved to be more important. Consequence perceptions are consistently influenced by people’s political stance, perceptions of the deservingness of welfare target groups and their attitudes towards the role of government.

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1.
1 Examples of studies on welfare legitimacy with such a ‘range’ approach are include: Andress and Heien (2003), Blekesaune and Quadagno (2003), Bonoli (2000), Bowles and Gintis (2000), Brooks and Manza (2006), Deitch (2004), Feldman and Steenbergen (2001), Haller et al. (1990), Kluegel and Miyano (1995), Linos and West (2003), Papadakis and Bean (1993), Paugam (2003), Roller (1995), Svallfors (1999; 2003), Gelissen (2000), Matheson and Wearing (1999), Meier Jaeger (2005) and Edlund (2007).
2.
2 Examples of studies on welfare legitimacy with such a ‘degree’ approach include: Blomberg (1999), Boeri et al. (2001), Edlund (2004; 2007), Feagin (1975), Feldman and Steenbergen (2001), Forma (1997), Haller et al. (1990), Hasenfeld and Rafferty (1989), Papadakis and Bean (1993), Pettersen (1995), Sihvo and Uusitalo (1995), Gelissen (2000), Rehm (2007), Veghte et al. (2007).
3.
3 Of course, one can question the causal direction. Here I assume it to be that attitudes influence perceptions of welfare consequences. From a dynamic perspective, perceptions of consequences in turn could influence attitudes, such as people’s political ideas, or their role-of-government attitudes. For instance, a person who is left-leaning, but for whatever reason starts to see strong negative economic and/or moral consequences (whether real or not), might become more right-leaning (in the sense of favouring neo-liberal market principles more). Regrettably, we do not have panel data to check for this empirically. My choice in analysing consequence perceptions as dependent and attitudes as independent variables stems from my aim to explore the social variations in such perceptions.
4.
4 I subtracted the average of respondents’ scores on the negatively formulated items regarding the economic, moral and migration consequences, from the average of scores on the positively formulated social consequences: the balance was positive in 67% of cases, zero in 4% of cases and negative in 30% of cases.
5.
5 Attitudinal ambivalence is usually defined as a person’s combination of positive and negative evaluations of a single attitude subject (Priester and Petty, 1996).
6.
6 Note in this respect that Gallie and Alm (2000) in the European-wide Employment in Europe Survey found that the commitment to work of unemployed people surpassed that of employed people.
7.
7 See for figures on this van Oorschot (2008).

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Published In

Volume 20, Issue 1
Pages: 19 - 31
Article first published online: February 4, 2010
Issue published: February 2010

Keywords

  1. legitimacy
  2. outcomes
  3. perceptions
  4. public opinion
  5. welfare state

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© The Author(s), 2010.

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Wim van Oorschot
Tilburg University, the Netherlands, [email protected]
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