Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-10DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103309
Eunjeong Paek
In this study, I examine whether workers’ access to employee-driven schedule flexibility increased from 1997 to 2015 and how trends in access vary across 11 European countries and the United States. Building on studies of stratification and gender, I decompose trends in schedule flexibility into compositional and coefficient changes associated with educational attainment and gender. Findings show that the cross-national disparity in access to schedule flexibility increased from 1997 to 2015 because access to schedule flexibility grew most in countries already reporting higher access in 1997. The increase in the share of highly educated male workers is a key source of the growth of access to schedule flexibility in Denmark, Norway, Germany, and Sweden. This study helps us understand various trends in schedule flexibility and the implications of changing labor force composition for the uneven diffusion of family-friendly workplace practices.
{"title":"Educational attainment, gender, and the change in access to schedule flexibility in Europe and the United States","authors":"Eunjeong Paek","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103309","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103309","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this study, I examine whether workers’ access to employee-driven schedule flexibility increased from 1997 to 2015 and how trends in access vary across 11 European countries and the United States. Building on studies of stratification and gender, I decompose trends in schedule flexibility into compositional and coefficient changes associated with educational attainment and gender. Findings show that the cross-national disparity in access to schedule flexibility increased from 1997 to 2015 because access to schedule flexibility grew most in countries already reporting higher access in 1997. The increase in the share of highly educated male workers is a key source of the growth of access to schedule flexibility in Denmark, Norway, Germany, and Sweden. This study helps us understand various trends in schedule flexibility and the implications of changing labor force composition for the uneven diffusion of family-friendly workplace practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103309"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145928731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-26DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103326
Yuan Hsiao , Lake Lui
Scholars and activists have long debated whether violent protest tactics help or hinder social movements. Recent research suggests, however, that whether a protest is perceived as violent is often a matter of subjective interpretation rather than objective assessment. Building on this perspective, we examine how perceptions of protest violence vary across political contexts by comparing three societies with distinct protest histories and institutions: the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Using survey experiments conducted in each society, we investigate how protest tactics, political alignment, and outcomes of police–protester conflict shape public perceptions of violence. We find that these factors strongly predict violence perceptions in the United States, apply only partially in Taiwan, and largely fail to explain perceptions in Hong Kong. In particular, U.S. respondents are much more likely than Taiwanese or Hong Kong respondents to view breaking into a legislative building as violent. Political alignment shapes violence perceptions in the United States and Taiwan but not in Hong Kong, while injuries to police officers increase perceived violence most strongly among U.S. respondents. These perceptions, in turn, influence individuals’ willingness to support protests. Taken together, the findings highlight the limits of U.S.-centric theories of protest violence and underscore the importance of historical and institutional context in shaping how protest actions are interpreted across societies.
{"title":"Why people perceive protest violence differently: A cross-national survey experiment in the US, Taiwan, and Hong Kong","authors":"Yuan Hsiao , Lake Lui","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103326","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103326","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Scholars and activists have long debated whether violent protest tactics help or hinder social movements. Recent research suggests, however, that whether a protest is perceived as violent is often a matter of subjective interpretation rather than objective assessment. Building on this perspective, we examine how perceptions of protest violence vary across political contexts by comparing three societies with distinct protest histories and institutions: the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Using survey experiments conducted in each society, we investigate how protest tactics, political alignment, and outcomes of police–protester conflict shape public perceptions of violence. We find that these factors strongly predict violence perceptions in the United States, apply only partially in Taiwan, and largely fail to explain perceptions in Hong Kong. In particular, U.S. respondents are much more likely than Taiwanese or Hong Kong respondents to view breaking into a legislative building as violent. Political alignment shapes violence perceptions in the United States and Taiwan but not in Hong Kong, while injuries to police officers increase perceived violence most strongly among U.S. respondents. These perceptions, in turn, influence individuals’ willingness to support protests. Taken together, the findings highlight the limits of U.S.-centric theories of protest violence and underscore the importance of historical and institutional context in shaping how protest actions are interpreted across societies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103326"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-19DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103324
Josué Teran Linarte, Christoph Spörlein
“While educational systems have expanded, regional and social disparities in attainment remain remarkably persistent. This study integrates social stratification research with behavioural genetics to examine how macro-level regional opportunity structures and micro-level family environments moderate the genetic influence on education. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and a Polygenic Index (PGI) for educational attainment, we test a Gene-by-Environment-by-Environment (GxExE) framework. Contrary to social enhancement and compensation models, our results indicate that genetic associations with education are stable across both rural/urban contexts and varying socioeconomic backgrounds. However, we find a significant interaction between family SES and urbanicity: urban environments amplify the advantages of high-SES families, whereas rural contexts appear to act as a “leveller” that constrains opportunities regardless of social background. These findings suggest that regional macro-structures do not moderate genetic associations directly but instead condition the efficacy of social and cultural capital. Our study underscores the necessity of incorporating macro-level institutional contexts into genetically informed models of inequality.”
{"title":"The rural-urban gap in educational inequality: Enhancement or compensation in genetic associations with educational attainment","authors":"Josué Teran Linarte, Christoph Spörlein","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103324","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103324","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>“While educational systems have expanded, regional and social disparities in attainment remain remarkably persistent. This study integrates social stratification research with behavioural genetics to examine how macro-level regional opportunity structures and micro-level family environments moderate the genetic influence on education. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and a Polygenic Index (PGI) for educational attainment, we test a Gene-by-Environment-by-Environment (GxExE) framework. Contrary to social enhancement and compensation models, our results indicate that genetic associations with education are stable across both rural/urban contexts and varying socioeconomic backgrounds. However, we find a significant interaction between family SES and urbanicity: urban environments amplify the advantages of high-SES families, whereas rural contexts appear to act as a “leveller” that constrains opportunities regardless of social background. These findings suggest that regional macro-structures do not moderate genetic associations directly but instead condition the efficacy of social and cultural capital. Our study underscores the necessity of incorporating macro-level institutional contexts into genetically informed models of inequality.”</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103324"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-18DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103322
Fabian Kratz
This study examines how social science research can more effectively inform policy interventions aimed at reducing social inequalities. Focusing on health disparities by social origin, it identifies three directions: reformulating theoretical frameworks in terms of hypothetical interventions, strengthening the alignment between theory and analytical strategies, and employing methods that simulate the effects of interventions. I reformulate previous theories to derive three testable hypotheses concerning the equalization of educational attainment and returns to education across social origin groups. To evaluate these hypotheses, I analyze data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) using a recently proposed random equalization decomposition approach. I compare the results of this method with those produced by conventional approaches—specifically, the product and difference methods—and demonstrate that only the random equalization decomposition provides quantities appropriate for testing intervention-based hypotheses. The results suggest that equalizing higher education rates across social origin groups consistently reduces health inequality for both women and men, and across all assessed age and cohort groups. Equalizing returns to higher education across social origin groups tends to increase rather than mitigate health inequalities, although these results are less conclusive. The study concludes by discussing further avenues to enhance the policy relevance of inequality research.
{"title":"Directions for improving the policy relevance of inequality research: Lessons from social origin–specific health disparities","authors":"Fabian Kratz","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103322","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103322","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how social science research can more effectively inform policy interventions aimed at reducing social inequalities. Focusing on health disparities by social origin, it identifies three directions: reformulating theoretical frameworks in terms of hypothetical interventions, strengthening the alignment between theory and analytical strategies, and employing methods that simulate the effects of interventions. I reformulate previous theories to derive three testable hypotheses concerning the equalization of educational attainment and returns to education across social origin groups. To evaluate these hypotheses, I analyze data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) using a recently proposed random equalization decomposition approach. I compare the results of this method with those produced by conventional approaches—specifically, the product and difference methods—and demonstrate that only the random equalization decomposition provides quantities appropriate for testing intervention-based hypotheses. The results suggest that equalizing higher education rates across social origin groups consistently reduces health inequality for both women and men, and across all assessed age and cohort groups. Equalizing returns to higher education across social origin groups tends to increase rather than mitigate health inequalities, although these results are less conclusive. The study concludes by discussing further avenues to enhance the policy relevance of inequality research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103322"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103320
Melissa Hurtado Nuez, Erick Samayoa , Christina J. Diaz
An established body of research examines the health and well-being of U.S. farmworkers, many of whom are foreign-born men. Over the past 25 years, however, the agricultural labor force has become increasingly diverse—with a larger share of Latin American women and Indigenous persons represented in the occupation. We use data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) to assess gender disparities in chronic conditions and pain among Latin American farmworkers (N = 34,656). We find that women who engage in farmwork consistently report worse health than men, even after accounting for sociodemographic and family characteristics. Strikingly, our rich set of covariates explains less than 1 % of the gender gap in health. The presence and size of this unexplained health gap indicates that other factors, such as workplace discrimination and gendered processes of migration, contribute to women's poor health. Our final test of moderation asks whether indigeneity and gender interact to produce unique health profiles. While the effect of indigeneity is not statistically larger among women than men, we find that non-Indigenous men exhibit comparably better health than women and Indigenous men. Rather than emphasizing individual or household characteristics, our findings highlight the importance of structural barriers that contribute to gendered health inequities.
{"title":"Harvesting inequality: How gender and indigeneity shape farmworker health","authors":"Melissa Hurtado Nuez, Erick Samayoa , Christina J. Diaz","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103320","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103320","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>An established body of research examines the health and well-being of U.S. farmworkers, many of whom are foreign-born men. Over the past 25 years, however, the agricultural labor force has become increasingly diverse—with a larger share of Latin American women and Indigenous persons represented in the occupation. We use data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) to assess gender disparities in chronic conditions and pain among Latin American farmworkers (<em>N</em> = 34,656). We find that women who engage in farmwork consistently report worse health than men, even after accounting for sociodemographic and family characteristics. Strikingly, our rich set of covariates explains less than 1 % of the gender gap in health. The presence and size of this unexplained health gap indicates that other factors, such as workplace discrimination and gendered processes of migration, contribute to women's poor health. Our final test of moderation asks whether indigeneity and gender interact to produce unique health profiles. While the effect of indigeneity is not statistically larger among women than men, we find that non-Indigenous men exhibit comparably better health than women and Indigenous men. Rather than emphasizing individual or household characteristics, our findings highlight the importance of structural barriers that contribute to gendered health inequities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103320"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-10DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103323
Andrew Francis-Tan, Nikhitha Mary Mathew, Chitra Pratap
On April 22, 2025, militants carried out an attack near the village of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Over the next couple of weeks, tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, culminating in a 4-day war between the nuclear powers. Using a survey experiment conducted in Uttar Pradesh, we explore how changes in geopolitical tensions influenced the attitudes of Indian Hindus toward Indian Muslims and other minorities. We find that the conflict between India and Pakistan caused Hindu attitudes toward religious minorities to significantly deteriorate. Negative attitudes toward Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs peaked after India announced nationwide preparations for a “hostile attack” but eased somewhat when India engaged in direct conflict with Pakistan. Attitudes nearly returned to baseline levels in the days following the ceasefire. Regarding theoretical mechanisms, the evidence suggests that despite any positive impacts of patriotic unity, the negative impacts of psychological distress and group threat had dominated. Taken together, the findings underscore the vulnerability of minorities during times of national crisis.
{"title":"Do geopolitical tensions increase negative attitudes toward minorities? Evidence from a natural experiment in India","authors":"Andrew Francis-Tan, Nikhitha Mary Mathew, Chitra Pratap","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103323","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>On April 22, 2025, militants carried out an attack near the village of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Over the next couple of weeks, tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, culminating in a 4-day war between the nuclear powers. Using a survey experiment conducted in Uttar Pradesh, we explore how changes in geopolitical tensions influenced the attitudes of Indian Hindus toward Indian Muslims and other minorities. We find that the conflict between India and Pakistan caused Hindu attitudes toward religious minorities to significantly deteriorate. Negative attitudes toward Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs peaked after India announced nationwide preparations for a “hostile attack” but eased somewhat when India engaged in direct conflict with Pakistan. Attitudes nearly returned to baseline levels in the days following the ceasefire. Regarding theoretical mechanisms, the evidence suggests that despite any positive impacts of patriotic unity, the negative impacts of psychological distress and group threat had dominated. Taken together, the findings underscore the vulnerability of minorities during times of national crisis.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103323"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-02-11DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103311
Lina Tobler , Julia Leesch
Past research has shown increasing overeducation in the US labor market. Given the costs of educational mismatch for workers and employers, understanding its underlying causes is crucial. Trends in educational (mis)matches can be driven by concurrent shifts in the supply of and demand for workers of a certain education, as well as changes in the nonrandom allocation process of workers to jobs. While previous research has considered these aspects with regard to the emergence of (mis)match on the micro-level, less is known about their relative impact on macro-level trends in educational (mis)match. Using American Community Survey data, we adopt a macro-level perspective to decompose educational (mis)match trends between 2003 and 2017 into two components: changes in educational supply and demand (opportunity structure) and changes in the nonrandom allocation process (matching pattern). Our findings indicate that the moderate increase in overeducation, slight decrease in undereducation, and fluctuating trends in adequate matches are largely attributable to changes in the opportunity structure, while changes in matching patterns contributed to a lesser extent. Policies incentivizing the creation of jobs requiring higher educational levels could help align educational supply with labor market demand.
{"title":"Workers, jobs, and how they are matched: A decomposition of US labor market trends in educational mismatch","authors":"Lina Tobler , Julia Leesch","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103311","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103311","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Past research has shown increasing overeducation in the US labor market. Given the costs of educational mismatch for workers and employers, understanding its underlying causes is crucial. Trends in educational (mis)matches can be driven by concurrent shifts in the supply of and demand for workers of a certain education, as well as changes in the nonrandom allocation process of workers to jobs. While previous research has considered these aspects with regard to the emergence of (mis)match on the micro-level, less is known about their relative impact on macro-level trends in educational (mis)match. Using American Community Survey data, we adopt a macro-level perspective to decompose educational (mis)match trends between 2003 and 2017 into two components: changes in educational supply and demand (opportunity structure) and changes in the nonrandom allocation process (matching pattern). Our findings indicate that the moderate increase in overeducation, slight decrease in undereducation, and fluctuating trends in adequate matches are largely attributable to changes in the opportunity structure, while changes in matching patterns contributed to a lesser extent. Policies incentivizing the creation of jobs requiring higher educational levels could help align educational supply with labor market demand.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103311"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103298
Tom VanHeuvelen , Natasha Quadlin , Jordyn Wald
In this article, we introduce a novel social fact that will be highly relevant for studies of gender inequality: women in computer science and, to a lesser extent, engineering fields report distinctly high levels of regret of their field of study compared to otherwise similar men. We develop expectations regarding gendered patterns of regret and examine them using nine waves of the Federal Reserve's Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) between 2015 and 2023. Using regression decomposition techniques, we demonstrate that observed economic, occupation, industry, and sociodemographic characteristics fare poorly in explaining the high regret of women in these fields. In fact, these fields are defined by a uniquely large unexplained amount of regret among women. Our findings raise alarm for those who wish to open access to these critical CS/Engineering fields for women: such endeavors will likely fail unless deep cultural work is done to change the regret that many women feel after successfully entering these fields.
{"title":"Regrets, she's had a few: Gender and regret of computer science and engineering degrees","authors":"Tom VanHeuvelen , Natasha Quadlin , Jordyn Wald","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103298","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103298","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this article, we introduce a novel social fact that will be highly relevant for studies of gender inequality: women in computer science and, to a lesser extent, engineering fields report distinctly high levels of regret of their field of study compared to otherwise similar men. We develop expectations regarding gendered patterns of regret and examine them using nine waves of the Federal Reserve's Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) between 2015 and 2023. Using regression decomposition techniques, we demonstrate that observed economic, occupation, industry, and sociodemographic characteristics fare poorly in explaining the high regret of women in these fields. In fact, these fields are defined by a uniquely large unexplained amount of regret among women. Our findings raise alarm for those who wish to open access to these critical CS/Engineering fields for women: such endeavors will likely fail unless deep cultural work is done to change the regret that many women feel after successfully entering these fields.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 103298"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145895830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-29DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103294
Irene Pañeda-Fernández , Jonne Kamphorst , Arnout van de Rijt , Balaraju Battu
A leading explanation for why in democratic societies the rich are not taxed more is that meritocratic beliefs breed tolerance for inequality. We problematize this account by claiming that, unlike the rich, the poor support greater redistribution regardless of how meritocratic they perceive society to be. The claim is tested using a cross-national survey and a preregistered experimental game that exogenized both income and perceptions of meritocratic fairness. Analysis of both survey and experimental data supports the proposed interaction effect between income and perceived meritocratic fairness on demand for redistribution. We conclude that while meritocratic beliefs can explain why the rich do not support more redistribution, it fails to explain the poor’s inequality acceptance.
{"title":"The relevance of meritocratic beliefs for redistributive preferences increases with income","authors":"Irene Pañeda-Fernández , Jonne Kamphorst , Arnout van de Rijt , Balaraju Battu","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103294","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103294","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A leading explanation for why in democratic societies the rich are not taxed more is that meritocratic beliefs breed tolerance for inequality. We problematize this account by claiming that, unlike the rich, the poor support greater redistribution regardless of how meritocratic they perceive society to be. The claim is tested using a cross-national survey and a preregistered experimental game that exogenized both income and perceptions of meritocratic fairness. Analysis of both survey and experimental data supports the proposed interaction effect between income and perceived meritocratic fairness on demand for redistribution. We conclude that while meritocratic beliefs can explain why the rich do not support more redistribution, it fails to explain the poor’s inequality acceptance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 103294"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145624234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-17DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103281
Austin Horng-En Wang , Darrell Carter , Naseem Benjelloun , Dhritiman Banerjee , Sydney Cervantes
Polls reveal an increasing ideological polarization in recent decades, which is attributed to polarizing die-hard partisans. However, mainstream measures on polarization, including mean difference and overlap measures, ignore how moderates may indirectly contribute to polarization by leaving or (re)joining parties. This article mathematically distinguishes how partisans and nonpartisans contribute to polarization, respectively. The revised measures apply to four panel surveys: ANES1992-1996 (n = 588), ANES1994-1996 (n = 1302), ANES2000-2002 (n = 412), and ANES2016-2020 (n = 1977). The result shows that loyal partisans only account for 5% – 50% of the overall changes in ideological polarization we observed previously, and the remains are explained by detaching nonpartisans and newcoming partisans, who are usually ideologically moderates. The results and new measures offer insights into examining the heterogeneity of polarizations and help form new strategies for dealing with polarization.
{"title":"Polarized by moderates","authors":"Austin Horng-En Wang , Darrell Carter , Naseem Benjelloun , Dhritiman Banerjee , Sydney Cervantes","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103281","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103281","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Polls reveal an increasing ideological polarization in recent decades, which is attributed to polarizing die-hard partisans. However, mainstream measures on polarization, including mean difference and overlap measures, ignore how moderates may indirectly contribute to polarization by leaving or (re)joining parties. This article mathematically distinguishes how partisans and nonpartisans contribute to polarization, respectively. The revised measures apply to four panel surveys: ANES1992-1996 (n = 588), ANES1994-1996 (n = 1302), ANES2000-2002 (n = 412), and ANES2016-2020 (n = 1977). The result shows that loyal partisans only account for 5% – 50% of the overall changes in ideological polarization we observed previously, and the remains are explained by detaching nonpartisans and newcoming partisans, who are usually ideologically moderates. The results and new measures offer insights into examining the heterogeneity of polarizations and help form new strategies for dealing with polarization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 103281"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145580001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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