Parochial Altruism and Political Ideology

Parochial altruism refers to the propensity to direct prosocial behavior toward members of one\u27s own ingroup to a greater extent than toward those outside one\u27s group. Both theory and empirical research suggest that parochialism may be linked to political ideology, with conservatives more likely than liberals to exhibit ingroup bias in altruistic behavior. The present study, conducted in the United States and Italy, tested this relationship in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing willingness to contribute money to charities at different levels of inclusiveness—local versus national versus international. Results indicated that conservatives contributed less money overall and were more likely to limit their contribution to the local charity while liberals were significantly more likely to contribute to national and international charities, exhibiting less parochialism. Conservatives and liberals also differed in social identification and trust, with conservatives higher in social identity and trust at the local and national levels and liberals higher in global social identity and trust in global others. Differences in global social identity partially accounted for the effects of political ideology on donations

Exposure to COVID-19 Is Associated With Increased Altruism, Particularly at the Local Level

Theory posits that situations of existential threat will enhance prosociality in general and particularly toward others perceived as belonging to the same group as the individual (parochial altruism). Yet, the global character of the COVID-19 pandemic may blur boundaries between ingroups and outgroups and engage altruism at a broader level. In an online experiment, participants from the U.S. and Italy chose whether to allocate a monetary bonus to a charity active in COVID-19 relief efforts at the local, national, or international level. The purpose was to address two important questions about charitable giving in this context: first, what influences the propensity to give, and second, how is charitable giving distributed across different levels of collective welfare? We found that personal exposure to COVID-19 increased donations relative to those not exposed, even as levels of environmental exposure (numbers of cases locally) had no effect. With respect to targets of giving, we found that donors predominantly benefitted the local level; donations toward country and world levels were half as large. Social identity was found to influence charity choice in both countries, although an experimental manipulation of identity salience did not have any direct effect

Occupational Skill Mismatch: Differences by Gender and Cohort

The authors deploy a measure of occupational mismatch based on the discrepancy between the portfolio of skills required by an occupation and the array of abilities possessed by the worker for learning those skills. Using data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97), they report distinct gender differences in match quality and changes in match quality over the course of careers. They also show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap stems from match quality differences among the college educated. College-educated females show a significantly greater likelihood of mismatch than do males. Moreover, individuals with children and those in more flexible occupations tend to experience a larger degree of mismatch. Cohort effects are also evident in the data: College-educated males of the younger cohort (NLSY97) are worse off in terms of match quality compared to the older cohort (NLSY79), even as the younger cohort of women is doing better on average