Income inequality and solidarity in Europe

This paper studies the relationship between income inequality, a macro-level characteristic, and solidarity of Europeans. To this aim, solidarity is defined as the ‘willingness to contribute to the welfare of other people’. We rely on a theoretical idea according to which feelings of solidarity are derived from both affective and calculating considerations, and we test competing hypotheses relating the extent of income inequality to both motivations for solidarity. Using data from the 1999 European Values Study (EVS), we apply multilevel analysis for 26 European countries. Controlling for household income and for other relevant macro-level characteristics which possibly influence feelings of solidarity of Europeans in different countries, we find evidence that in more unequal countries people are less willing to take action to improve the living conditions of their fellow-countrymen. This is true for respondents living in both low- and high-income households. Following from our expectations derived from the literature, this finding furthermore suggests that, at least when measured in terms of ‘willingness to contribute to the welfare of other people’, feelings of solidarity seem to be influenced more strongly by affective, rather than by calculating considerations

Is solidarity less important and less functional in egalitarian contexts?

Solidarity refers to a willingness to contribute to the welfare of other people. This study builds on the idea that not only the value of solidarity (i.e. whether people find solidarity important) but also the function of solidarity (i.e. whether solidarity results in reputational gains) can differ across societies. According to the literature, egalitarian contexts can either have a normative effect by promoting the value of solidarity and increasing the reputational gains of solidarity, or they can have a crowding-out effect by diminishing the value of solidarity and weakening the reputational gains resulting from solidarity. The current study investigates these conflicting ideas using individual-level data (N = 195,024) from the European Social Survey (ESS), which combines six waves of cross-sectional studies collected in 28 countries from 2002 to 2012. The results show that both the value of solidarity and the function of solidarity are weaker in egalitarian contexts, supporting the crowding-out hypothesis. In inegalitarian contexts individual solidarity is more valued and it serves more as a function for promoting higher reputational gains as compared to egalitarian contexts. The combination of between- and within-country over-time empirical evidence adds to the strength of these findings.individual solidarity is more valued and it serves more as a function for promoting higher reputational gains as compared to egalitarian contexts. The combination of between- and within-country over-time empirical evidence adds to the strength of these findings