The issue of welfare targeting is back on the political agenda in European welfare states. Benefit recipients are subject to different rules, depending on age, family status and work. For instance, strict conditions and harsh sanctions apply, in particular, to young unemployed people. This article investigates public opinion towards welfare targeting in three policy areas – unemployment benefits, conditionality of benefits and sanctions – and utilizes a factorial vignette experiment presented within a representative German survey. The results suggest strong support for welfare targeting. Respondents are more likely to offer generous benefits and fewer obligations and sanctions to unemployed people who are elderly, have caring responsibilities, are of German ethnicity and have high job-seeking ambitions. The negative effect of foreign ethnicity is moderated by the ideological standpoint of the respondent, highlighting the mechanisms underlying welfare chauvinism. Accordingly, policy support strongly depends on the individual circumstances of the affected target group.
Increasing wage inequality, strong labour market divides and welfare retrenchment are widely believed to result in more polarised public opinion towards the welfare state. The present study examined if attitudes towards workfare policies have become more polarised in Europe over recent decades. To achieve this aim, the study analysed public opinion data from the European Value Study (EVS) from 23 European countries in the years 1990–2008, using multi‐level regression analysis. It is found that individuals who are most affected by workfare – the unemployed, the poor and the young – most strongly oppose workfare concepts. Against expectations, there was no evidence of an increasing polarisation of attitudes in Europe. Attitudinal cleavages based on employment status, income and education have remained stable. Differences between age groups have even dissolved because younger cohorts increasingly favour strict workfare policies. The results suggest that warnings of increasing social conflicts and an erosion of solidarity in European societies are exaggerated.
Since the 1990s, stricter conditions for the (long-term) unemployed to receive benefits have been on the 'activation' agenda. However, policymakers are constrained in their reform efforts by the economic and fiscal situation, the pre-existing institutional contexts and public opinion. This cross-national and longitudinal study investigates whether the social legitimacy of benefit obligations for the unemployed is affected by the changing economic situation and the varying institutional context. We use data from the European Values Survey, a repeated cross-sectional survey that was conducted in 1990, 1999 and 2008 in 23 European countries. Support for the conditionality of unemployment benefits is measured with an item that asks whether people who are unemployed should have to take any job available. We find that the main economic indicators-economic growth and the unemployment rate-are significantly related to support for conditionality. People living in wealthier countries are more likely to be in favour of conditionality, whereas a high unemployment rate reduces such support. With regard to institutional features, we find some support for the assumption that people in welfare states with more generous social policies prefer stricter conditionality for access, in order to protect the generous benefits against any misuse.
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