DYNAMIC CLEAVAGES OF ‘WELFARE RIGHTS AND DUTIES’ IN PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARDS OLD-AGE PENSIONS

DYNAMIC CLEAVAGES OF ‘WELFARE RIGHTS AND DUTIES’ IN PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARDS OLD-AGE PENSIONS

A comparative study

Sang-Hoon Ahn

College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Soo-Wan Kim

College of Social Welfare, Kangnam University, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

ABSTRACT: This study investigated public attitudes towards pension spending in welfare states. By utilising a dataset covering 21 different Western European countries and conducting a multi-level analyses, three main findings resulted. First, as the welfare status model suggests, the status of welfare duties as well as the status of welfare rights proved to play a key role in shaping the political cleavages over public pensions at both macro- and micro-levels. Second, age and gender also seem to be significant sources of cleavage in addition to class-related variables. Finally, the study examined empirically the interaction effect of age and class-related factors to reveal that class-based interests offset generational interests.

Key words: public attitudes; pension; welfare status model; genera- tional cleavage; class cleavage; gender cleavage; multilevel analysis

Sang-Hoon Ahn & Soo-Wan Kim (2014) Dynamic Cleavages of ‘Welfare Rights and Duties’ in Public Attitude Towards Old-age Pensions, European Societies, 16:1, 90-111, DOI: 10.1080/14616696.2012.748928