This article examines the relationships between socioeconomic status and attitudes toward redistributive taxation across 33 countries using the complete International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2006 data set. We apply a simple rational-choice-inspired homo-economicus hypothesis proposing that those better off in the socioeconomic hierarchy should have less reason to support state-organized economic redistribution compared to those situated at lower levels in the socioeconomic hierarchy. The empirical results demonstrate substantial cross-country variation regarding the correspondence between empirical observations and theoretical expectations. When faced with such tremendous cross-national variation in response patterns, a common strategy among researchers is to question the quality of the data collection procedures for those countries deviating strongly from theoretical expectations. The strategy chosen in this study is, however, different. The main argument is that an observed lack of fit between theory and empirical observations may be rooted in problems related to theory rather than the quality of data collection procedures. Building on previous research, two "cultural distance" hypotheses are formulated, both of which argue that the correspondence between the homo-economicus theory and empirics should indeed vary systematically across countries. The first focuses on the role of the welfare state and the second on the level of economic affluence and associated scientific dominance. Both hypotheses receive considerable empirical support. The relationship between socioeconomic status and support for redistributive taxation is substantially stronger in the wealthy Western welfare states—particularly among those of Northern Europe—than in the poor non-Western countries lacking any institutional design reminiscent of a welfare state.
The Role of Government (ROG) module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a unique high-quality data source for comparative research on political attitudes and orientations. This article describes the content, coverage, and history of the ISSP 2016 ROG module, which was fielded in 35 countries. The module has been fielded five times since its inception in 1985, and a majority of the items in the 2016 module are replicated from previous waves to facilitate comparisons over time. In addition, a substantial number of new items are included to cover pertinent issues not previously addressed by the ISSP. Topics include (but are not restricted to) civil liberties; national security and challenges; state intervention in the economy; government taxation, spending, redistribution, and responsibilities; political trust and efficacy; corruption and institutional trust; and government responsiveness. This new wave of the module gauges political opinion at a moment in history characterized by substantial political turmoil and change in many countries. At the same time, this fifth wave strengthens the analytical capacity of the module for charting longitudinal developments both within and across countries. Overall, this makes the ISSP ROG module an attractive platform for asking new questions that can further the mutual development of theory and empirical analysis in comparative research.
The study aims to explore whether gendered family roles in the country of origin and the country of destination explain labor market outcomes for immigrants in Sweden. We examine the assumptions of the source country culture literature—that traditional gender norms in immigrants' source countries drive women's employment in the new country—by focusing on gender differences and exploring group- and individual-level mechanisms, notably, that of care responsibilities. Using Swedish register data, comprising more than 660 000 individuals from 110 source countries, we analyze the labor market establishment of immigrant women and men in 2016 with multi-level regressions. Findings show that the gender gap in employment is significantly larger among groups from countries with low female labor force participation. Much of this gap is explained by women's care responsibilities, both at arrival and through continued fertility after arrival. Thus, even in Sweden, with longstanding policies promoting female employment, immigrant women's employment is conditioned by the gender-traditionality of their source countries. The findings question the gender-equalizing power of welfare state institutions in the face of increasing immigration. However, education crucially affects the implications of cultural background and fertility. In future research, these mechanisms—including the group-level correlations—should be further explored to better pinpoint the obstacles facing women from traditional countries.
This study advances the current understanding of why many citizens do not display a high level of commitment to protecting the environment. We examine cross-national differences in the salience of attitudinal and behavioral profiles distinguished by their comparably low levels of pro-environmental behavior, in both the public and private spheres. Based on theories of postmaterialism and collective action problems, we expect gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and levels of generalized trust to be related to the salience of these attitudinal and behavioral profiles cross-nationally. First, low levels of GDP very likely constrain pro-environmental behavior through decreasing environmental concern, which should increase the probability of citizens displaying an attitudinal and behavioral profile characterized by low levels of both environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior. Second, collective action problems in low-trust countries should also constrain behavior by undermining the propensity of environmentally concerned individuals to act on their concerns, which should increase the probability of citizens displaying a profile characterized by low levels of pro-environmental behavior despite high levels of concern. Using latent class analysis and multilevel modeling, we analyze data from the International Social Survey Programme (2010) and show that the probability of individuals displaying these profiles is clearly linked to GDP and national levels of generalized trust, in the expected manner. In contrast to previous research, we demonstrate that these societal factors are complementary insofar as they relate to fundamentally different individual-level processes underlying pro-environmental behavior.
While it is becoming increasingly evident that environmental problems such as climate change and global warming constitute existential threats to human societies, these problems will very likely per- sist and even intensify unless governments enact effective and potentially costly environmental poli- cies. However, government policies and spending ultimately rely on public support, thus underscoring the need to increase present knowledge about the processes underlying citizens' policy attitudes. In this study, we focus on the relationship between citizens' normative views about govern- ment responsibility and their support for government spending on the environment. While people who think that, as a general principle, it ought to be the government's responsibility to protect the environment should be more likely to support increasing government spending on the environment, we argue that this relationship is dependent on the quality of government. Using multilevel analysis and data from the most recent ISSP “Role of Government” module, we show that people who think that it is the government's responsibility to protect the environment are more likely to support increasing government spending on the environment in countries where government institutions are fair, effective, and non-corrupt. This suggests that the role of government in protecting the environment stretches far beyond designing effective environmental policies, since an overall ineffective and corrupt government appears to undermine public support for critical environmental policymaking.
This short note introduces the second special issue focusing on the analysis of comparative data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Social Inequality (SI) module. In addition to expressing our appreciation for our colleagues on the drafting group for sharing their time and expertise to shape the content of the 2019 module, we provide a summary of the three empirical articles featured in this second special issue. These articles represent a further contribution to our understanding of inequality beliefs more than three decades since the first ISSP SI module was fielded in the late 1980s. In conclusion, we encourage the global research community to make extensive use of the 2019 ISSP SI module data to further explore the dynamics of inequality beliefs and socioeconomic conditions worldwide.
Coinciding with a trend of rising economic divides within many countries, scholarly interest in the subject of inequality has grown significantly in the twenty first century. Since its creation in 1987, the Social Inequality module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) has evolved into an exceptionally comprehensive country-comparative individual-level database on public beliefs about inequality and socioeconomic conditions. The module stands out among international surveys due to its extensive thematic depth and breadth, along with the long timespan it covers. This provides unique opportunities for charting and monitoring longitudinal trends in social inequality, as well as for conducting comparative analyses aimed at advancing theories that incorporate the national context as an integral part of the explanatory framework. This article describes the content, coverage, and history of the fifth wave of the Social Inequality module (2019). This survey wave was conducted in 34 countries and combines previously fielded topics with new ones that speak to current debates in different areas of inequality research. The fifth wave introduces new questions focusing on anger and unfairness, reducing inequality by market actors, government inefficacy, lived experience of inequality, economic insecurity and deprivation, and social trust.