Mitigating tough times? How material self-interest influences citizens' welfare state behavior. 2025.
American Journal of Political Science (Early View)
It is a long-standing view that citizens support the welfare state because it provides insurance against future income losses. However, existing studies have struggled to isolate the effect of future-oriented material self-interest from normative and political predispositions. Using population-wide, administrative panel data from Denmark, I study citizens' choice to take up government-funded social insurance in times of economic uncertainty: a critical case for material self-interest to be at stake. Using as-if random variation in exposure to signals of unemployment risks, I show that economic uncertainty increases the probability of buying supplementary unemployment insurance coverage. Linking the administrative records to individual-level survey data reveals that exposure to unemployment risk signals increases feelings of job insecurity, further suggesting that economic worries shape citizens' behavior within the welfare state. These findings highlight the role of material self-interest in influencing the welfare state, providing valuable insights for policymakers when designing social insurance policies.
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Unequal and Unsupportive: Exposure to poor people weakens support for redistribution among the rich. 2024.
British Journal of Political Science 54(4), with Peter T. Dinesen and Kim Mannemar Sønderskov
Do the rich become more or less supportive of redistribution when exposed to poor people in their local surroundings? Most existing observational studies find that exposure to poor individuals is positively associated with support for redistribution among the well-off, but one prominent field experiment found a negative link. We seek to resolve these divergent findings by employing a design closer to the studies that have found a positive link, but with more causal leverage than these; specifically, a three-wave panel survey linked with fine-grained registry data on local income composition in Denmark. In within-individual models, increased exposure to poor individuals is associated with lower support for redistribution among wealthy individuals. By contrast, between-individual models yield a positive relationship, thus indicating that self-selection based on stable individual characteristics likely explains the predominant finding in previous work.
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Danskernes holdning til velfærdsstaten. 2025.
Politica 57(3), with Carsten Jensen
Artiklen diskuterer velfærdsstatslitteraturens forventninger til den universelle velfærdsmodel og borgernes holdninger. En væsentlig pointe er, at det ikke giver mening at tale om velfærdsstaten som én samlet enhed; i stedet bør vi fokusere på de forskellige områder, der tilsammen udgør velfærdsstaten. Hvert område har sin egen logik og unikke holdningsprofil, hvilket påvirker de reformdynamikker, vi kan forestille os på de enkelte områder. Dette relaterer sig også til den sociale kontrakt, der kort sagt handler om, at borgerne skal opleve, at de får værdi for deres skatter; især at velfærdsstaten er der, når de selv får brug for den. Desuden skelner danskerne ofte mellem forskellige samfundsgrupper; ikke alle anses for at have samme ret til velfærd. Selvom danskerne generelt værdsætter deres velfærdsstat, er opbakningen langtfra ubetinget. Samlet set skaber disse faktorer et nuanceret billede, hvor visse samfundsgrupper og velfærdsordninger er mere udsatte for reformer end andre.
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Downward Competition: How perceived economic distances reduce support for redistribution to the poor
[invited to revise and resubmit]
Do downward comparisons shape support for redistribution toward the poor? I argue that individuals who identify as middle-income become less supportive of redistribution when they perceive a small economic distance from the poor, as perceived proximity triggers competitive thinking about status and resources. To test this argument, I conduct two nationally representative survey experiments in the United Kingdom (n=3,470) and analyze observational data from 14 democracies. Across studies, I find that support for redistribution to poor people is weakest when respondents feel economically close to the poor but distant from the rich. Moreover, the findings suggest that these patterns are driven by perceived downward economic distance rather than upward distance. Finally, I present preliminary evidence that economic and status-based competition link downward comparisons to redistribution preferences. Together, these results advance our understanding of how social comparison processes shape attitudes toward redistribution and provide valuable insights for policy-makers designing redistributive policies.
Do Group-Based Inequalities Feel More Unjust? Experimental Evidence from Economically Disadvantaged Groups in India, South Africa, and the United States
[invited to revise and resubmit], with Lasse E. Leipziger and Laurits F. Aarslew
Macrolevel research find that interethnic inequalities are more likely than interpersonal inequalities to spark political conflict and instability. However, the individual-level mechanisms driving this relationship remain empirically underexamined. We test the central hypothesis that group-based disparities evoke stronger feelings and perceptions of injustice than interpersonal inequalities. Drawing on three preregistered priming experiments among disadvantaged groups in India (n = 1,600), South Africa (n = 1,600), and the United States (n = 3,000), we find limited evidence that intergroup inequality is perceived as more unfair and evokes stronger feelings of injustice than interpersonal inequality. Our findings challenge a prevalent assumption of grievance-based theories and underscore the need for more systematic micro-level investigation.
Stable Demand and Individual-Level Responsiveness: The Role of Persistent Pessimism in Welfare Opinion Formation
with Carsten Jensen, Martin Vinæs Larsen, and Troels Bøggild
Welfare opinion research reveals a striking contrast between individual-level and aggregate-level patterns. Micro-level studies show that citizens adjust their preferences when exposed to policy-relevant information. Yet aggregate public opinion remains remarkably stable---even amid repeated elite warnings about the welfare state’s fiscal unsustainability. We explain this stability by arguing that welfare preferences are shaped by persistent pessimism, which influences both baseline beliefs and responses to new information. Most citizens are welfare pessimists who systematically underestimate benefit generosity. When corrected, pessimists slightly reduce support for welfare expansion, while optimists---who overestimate generosity---increase support more sharply, offsetting the decline. This asymmetry helps explain how information sustains, rather than shifts, aggregate opinion. We demonstrate these dynamics using a large-scale randomized correction experiment with 15,000 Danish citizens and a difference-in-differences design. The findings advance our understanding of welfare opinion formation and highlight the political difficulty of recalibrating welfare policy under mounting fiscal pressure.
Greater Generosity, Diminished Demands: Increased Social Insurance Benefits Temper Public Support for Welfare Expansion
A long-standing perspective in welfare state research holds that changes in social policies shape welfare preferences. However, empirical studies disagree on the nature of this relationship: Some find that more generous social policies fuel public demand for welfare, while others suggest it tempers such demands. To help resolve this puzzle, I examine causally credible variation in benefit generosity by exploiting an age-based discontinuity under Danish policy: a substantial increase in unemployment assistance at age 30. I leverage this discontinuity by fielding a large-scale survey (n = 31,000) that provides individualized, policy-relevant information, and apply a regression discontinuity design. The results show that becoming eligible for higher unemployment benefits reduces support for further welfare expansion---a negative effect observed across multiple dimensions of welfare state preferences. These findings show that individual-level preference reacts thermostatically to changes in welfare state policies; more generous social insurance causes individuals to temper their demands for further welfare state expansions.
It's the (relative local) economy, stupid: Local income position is robustly linked to subjective well-being
with Peter T. Dinesen, and Kim Mannemark Sønderskov