This chapter empirically investigates the evolution of public welfare attitudes over the past four decades from a birds-eye perspective. To do that, the Chapter reviews existing quantitative surveys on welfare attitudes. First, the Chapter finds that the public shows overall high and relatively stable levels of support for more government redistribution from 1981 to the present. During the post-crisis years after 2007/2008 (financial crisis), some (upward and downward) convergence trends across countries and time in attitudes were reinforced. Second, important socioeconomic cleavages are declining over time, too, particularly educational cleavages. Third, social investment policies, such as education, enjoy increasing levels of support, while the opposite trends can be seen for compensation policies, such as unemployment benefits. Overall, the Chapter finds emerging welfare solidarity across and within European countries and demonstrates that such attitudes increase in times of rising social risks and crises.
Barro, Robert J. and Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 1992. “Convergence.” Journal of Political Economy 100(2): 223–251.
Blekesaune, Morten. 2007. “Economic Conditions and Public Attitudes to Welfare Policies.” European Sociological Review 23(3): 393–403.
Burgoon, Brian, Koster, Ferry and Van Egmond, Marcel. 2012. “Support for Redistribution and the Paradox of Immigration.” Journal of European Social Policy 22(3): 288–304.
Busemeyer, Marius R., Abrassart, Aurélien and Nezi, Roula. 2019. “Beyond Positive and Negative: New Perspectives on Feedback Effects in Public Opinion on the Welfare State.” British Journal of Political Science 51: 137–162.
Busemeyer, Marius R., Garritzmann, Julian, Neimanns, Erik and Nezi, Roula. 2018. “Investing in Education in Europe: Evidence from a New Survey of Public Opinion.” Journal of European Social Policy 28(1): 34–54.
Cornelisse, Peter A. and Goudswaard, Kees P. 2002. “On the Convergence of Social Protection Systems in the European Union.” International Social Security Review 55(3): 3–17.
Dallinger, Ursula. 2010. “Public Support for Redistribution: What Explains Cross-National Differences?” Journal of European Social Policy 20(4): 333–349.
Eick, Gianna M., Burgoon, Brian and Busemeyer, Marius R. 2021. “Measuring Social Citizenship in Social Policy Outputs, Resources and Outcomes across EU Member States from 1985 to the Present.” EUSocialCit, Working Paper.
Eick, Gianna M. and Larsen, Christian A. 2022. “Welfare Chauvinism across Benefits and Services.” Journal of European Social Policy 32(1): 19–32.
Esping-Andersen, Gosta. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Ferrera, Maurizio. 2017. “Impatient Politics and Social Investment: The EU as ‘Policy Facilitator’.” Journal of European Public Policy 24(8): 1233_1251.
Finseraas, Henning. 2009. “Income Inequality and Demand for Redistribution: A Multilevel Analysis of European Public Opinion.” Scandinavian Political Studies 32(1): 94–119.
Gingrich, Jane and Häusermann, Silja. 2015. “The Decline of the Working-class Vote, the Reconfiguration of the Welfare Support Coalition and Consequences for the Welfare State.” Journal of European Social Policy 25(1): 50–75.
Greve, Bent. Handbook on Austerity, Populism and the Welfare State. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021.
Häusermann, Silja, Kurer, Thomas and Schwander, Hanna. 2015. “High-Skilled Outsiders? Labor Market Vulnerability, Education and Welfare State Preferences.” Socio-Economic Review 13(2): 235–258.
Jæger, Mads. 2013. “The Effect of Macroeconomic and Social Conditions on the Demand for Redistribution: A Pseudo Panel Approach.” Journal of European Social Policy 23(2): 149–163.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Grande, Edgar, Lachat, Romain, Dolezal, Martin, Bornschier, Simon and Frey, Timotheos. West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Neundorf, Anja and Soroka, Stuart. 2018. “The Origins of Redistributive Policy Preferences: Political Socialisation With and Without a Welfare State.“ West European Politics 41(2): 400_427.
OECD Database. 2020. “Income Distribution and Poverty Database.” Retrieved 27 July 2021. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=IDD.
Rehm, Philipp. 2009. “Risks and Redistribution: An Individual-level Analysis.” Comparative Political Studies 42(7): 855–881.
Roosma, Femke and Jeene, Marjolein. 2017. “The Deservingness Logic Applied to Public Opinions Concerning Work Obligations for Benefit Claimants.” In Wim van Oorschot, Femke Roosma, Bart Meuleman and Tim Reeskens (Eds.) The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare (pp. 189–206). Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Roosma, Femke, Gelissen, John and van Oorschot, Wim. 2013. “The Multidimensionality of Welfare State Attitudes: A European Cross-National Study.” Social Indicators Research 113(1): 235–255.
Rothstein, Bo. Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Sainsbury, Diane. 2001. “Welfare State Challenges and Responses: Institutional and Ideological Resilience or Restructuring?” Acta Sociologica 44(3): 257–265.
Schakel, Wouter, Burgoon, Brian and Hakhverdian, Armen. 2020. “Real but Unequal Representation in Welfare State Reform.” Politics & Society 48(1): 131–163.
Svallfors, Stefan. 2012. “Welfare States and Welfare Attitudes”. In Stefan Svallfors (Ed.) Contested Welfare States: Welfare Attitudes in Europe and Beyond (pp. 1–24). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Taylor-Gooby, Peter, Leruth, Benjamin and Chung, Heejung (Eds.). After Austerity: Welfare State Transformation in Europe after the Great Recession. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
van Oorschot, Wim. 2000. “Who Should Get What, and Why? On Deservingness Criteria and the Conditionality of Solidarity Among the Public.” Policy & Politics 28(1): 33–48.
