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Attitudes Toward Intergenerational Redistribution in the Welfare State

Einstellungen zur intergenerationalen Umverteilung im Wohlfahrtsstaat

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Abstract

Which motivations explain attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution? This study presents two perspectives. The first one is demographic aging where individuals’ attitudes are influenced by short- and long-term self-interest. The second perspective is socialization into a certain institutional context where people internalize the reciprocity and the deservingness norms. Besides investigating the impact of these motivations, the empirical analysis assesses their relative importance for explaining attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution. The ordinary least-squares regression draws on data of the “Attitudes Toward The Welfare State” survey that was conducted in 2008 in Germany. The study investigates the working age group’s attitude toward relative governmental spending for older people. The empirical analysis yields that people are motivated by long-term self-interest and hold the state responsible to protect them from the perceived future risk of old-age poverty. Also, norms of reciprocity and of deservingness are important to support intergenerational redistribution, whereas the latter seems to be the relatively most important motivation. We can take this as a sign of intergenerational cohesion that is relevant against the background of accelerating demographic aging and resulting pressure on institutions of intergenerational redistribution.

Zusammenfassung

Welche Motivationen erklären Einstellungen zur intergenerationalen Umverteilung? Diese Studie stellt zwei Perspektiven vor. Die erste ist die der demografischen Alterung, bei der Einstellungen durch kurz- und langfristiges Eigeninteresse beeinflusst werden. Die zweite Perspektive ist die der Sozialisation in einen bestimmten institutionellen Kontext, bei der Personen die Reziprozitäts- und die Bedürftigkeitsnorm internalisieren. Die lineare Regression basiert auf Daten der Studie „Einstellungen zum Sozialstaat“, die 2008 in Deutschland erhoben wurden. Sie untersucht die Einstellungen von Personen im Erwerbsalter zur relativen sozialstaatlichen Unterstützung älterer Personen. Die empirische Analyse ergibt, dass Personen von langfristigem Eigeninteresse motiviert sind und den Staat verantwortlich halten, sie vor einem wahrgenommenen niedrigen Lebensstandard im eigenen Alter zu schützen. Auch sind Reziprozitäts- und Bedürftigkeitsnormen relevant, wobei letztere relativ am wichtigsten für die Erklärung von Einstellungen zu sein scheint. Dies kann als ein Anzeichen für intergenerationalen Zusammenhalt gedeutet werden, der vor dem Hintergrund der demografischen Alterung und dem zunehmenden Druck auf die Institutionen der intergenerationalen Umverteilung bedeutsam ist.

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Notes

  1. The literature emphasizes the consequences of demographic aging for intergenerational redistribution. However, there are also other developments (such as declining economy) that contribute to scarce welfare state resources and lower welfare state benefits over time.

  2. The data are available at the Gesis data archive (ZA5193).

  3. Regression diagnostics yield that OLS regression assumptions are met, except as follows: (1) heteroscedasticity in a few models. Therefore, I compared models with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors (see Wooldridge 2013, p. 259) and models with OLS standard errors. As there are no relevant differences, I report the OLS standard errors only. (2) Error terms are not normally distributed. Because this should not influence the results due to my large sample size (see Fox 1991, p. 40; Ohr 2010, p. 672), I neglect the non-normally distributed error terms. (3) To reduce a non-linear relationship between age and the dependent variable, I include age-squared into the models, which reduces the non-linear relationship a bit (but not completely).

  4. For example, as a re-specification, I checked an interaction between a perceived conflict and older family member(s) living in the household, assuming that a perceived conflict might not matter for those with direct and close intergenerational contacts. However, there is no interaction effect. I thank the anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

  5. The results of OLS regressions without influential cases are not shown. The main difference of regressions with and without influential cases refers to the effect of a perceived conflict between young and old (see text). Moreover, there is a difference regarding the effect of the deservingness norm in model 5 for East Germany: Whereas the coefficient for the deservingness variables’ category “rather low” in the model with influential cases (Table 2) is not significant, the model without influential cases yields a positive significant coefficient. I neglect this finding, as it fits well into the tendency of a general positive effect of this variable. Differences between models with and without influential cases regarding the control variables are not reported here. Number of influential cases in the models for West Germany: n = 96, East Germany: n = 83.

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Acknowledgements

For helpful comments, I would like to thank Christian Deindl, Karsten Hank, Christian Albrekt Larsen, Daniel Sage, Veronika Salzburger and an anonymous reviewer.

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Correspondence to Katrin Prinzen.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Operationalization of concepts. (Source: Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt a. M. 2008)
Table 4 Summary statistics. (Source: Attitudes Toward The Welfare State Survey (2008) respondents who indicated not being a pensioner, aged below retirement age and not being in early retirement)

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Prinzen, K. Attitudes Toward Intergenerational Redistribution in the Welfare State. Köln Z Soziol 67 (Suppl 1), 349–370 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-015-0326-5

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