Abstract
Income redistribution, as one of the core functions of modern welfares states, has long been the subject of study for various social science disciplines. Recent growth in economic inequalities (as documented by Piketty 2014) reinvigorated interest in policies that would reduce growing inequalities.
This article focuses on the demand side of income redistribution and its interplay with changing socio-economic context. Particularly, the paper analyses support for income redistribution in the Czech Republic between 2002 and 2016.
Whereas most previous comparative studies employed cross-sectional data for several countries to analyse the impact of socio-economic conditions, few studies have employed the within-country longitudinal perspective. Therefore, this paper extends the range of longitudinal studies conducted almost exclusively within western market economies by considering a post-communist case study: the Czech Republic.
The time span covered by the European Social Survey enables to study individual support for income redistribution and its aggregate-level development before the Great Recession, during the economic decline and subsequent recovery. Aggregate support for income redistribution in the Czech Republic varied significantly during this period.
It peaked in the years after the Great Recession (ESS rounds 5 and 6 fielded in 2011 and 2013) when more than 60% of Czechs agreed that "the government should take measures to reduce differences in income levels". Strong economic growth after the 2012-13 GDP contraction was associated with a lower support for redistribution (43% in late 2016).
The paper examines three distinct research questions. Firstly, which individual-level variables are key determinants of support for income redistribution? Secondly, do groups defined by individual-level factors react to the changing economic context uniformly, or do the directions of change vary? Thirdly, which contextual variables have the biggest effect on support for income redistribution? The article employs a cumulative dataset from seven ESS rounds along with contextual variables generated from the OECD database.
Bivariate analyses indicate that educational attainment and income are negatively associated with support for income redistribution. Age, on the other hand, suggests a strong positive correlation with pro-redistributive attitudes (i.e. older people are much more supportive of redistribution).
All groups defined by these three variables react to changing economic context uniformly. Put differently, time trends in support for income redistribution in these groups are parallel to the overall aggregate support.
Unemployment rate and net household disposable income growth are the strongest contextual correlates of pro-redistributive attitudes. When unemployment is high and household disposable incomes are stagnant (or decrease), Czechs are more prone to support redistribution.
Regression models mostly confirm these bivariate relationships. Both individual-level models (with year dummy-variables and contextual variables as individual-level predictors) and two-level random intercept models were employed to more thoroughly scrutinise the bivariate relationships.
Contrary to the findings reported in some western economies, Czechs react to worsening economic conditions by demanding more redistribution (Soroka and Wlezien, 2014). Furthermore, this article provides evidence that while differences across countries in unemployment rates are not related to aggregate support for redistribution (Jæger, 2013); within-country trends in unemployment rates may be strongly associated with redistributive attitudes.