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ID:
135323
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| Summary/Abstract |
Come inequality affects substantive outcomes such as redistribution and voter turnout. Nevertheless, a country’s level of income inequality has a differential impact on citizens’ evaluation of the same because individuals have different normative values about inequality. This paper shifts the analytical focus from objective income inequality—commonly measured by the Gini ratio—to subjective dimensions of income inequality, namely individual tolerance for income inequality. Using the Philippines as a case, this paper argues that a country’s level of objective income inequality does not systematically affect a person’s level of tolerance for income inequality. This argument is counter-intuitive because most extant studies implicitly assume that a country’s level of income inequality affects a person’s values on the same. By focusing on a person’s redistributive preference, this paper also shows that subjective dimensions of income inequality can affect substantive outcomes.
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| 2 |
ID:
139983
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| Summary/Abstract |
Most countries are grappling with the rising income inequality problem and many governments believe that it is important to reduce income inequality. This is because income inequality is associated with a variety of ‘negative’ outcomes (e.g., protest and low citizen well-being). This seemingly common-sense argument hinges on an untested assumption: Changes in a country’s level of income inequality affect how its citizens perceive and evaluate income inequality. This article argues that this is not theoretically plausible and shows with evidence from China and Japan from 1995 to 2007, that the income inequality of the context a person is embedded in does not systematically affect his or her perception and evaluation of income inequality. Instead, it is the individual socio-psychological factors that affect individual subjective evaluation of income inequality. Thus, while government officials in China and Japan are quick to implement policies that lower the objective dimensions of income inequality, more efforts should focus on subjective income inequality. Simply using the metric of objective income inequality indices (e.g., Gini ratio) as a measure of policy impact may blindside policy makers to the more important subjective income inequality, that is, how people perceive and evaluate everyday income inequality.
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