Welfare by design : public responses to the distribution of old-age pensions
Marinova, Dani (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Ciència Política i de Dret Públic)
Hellwig, Timothy (University at Buffalo)

Fecha:	2026
Descripción:	21 pàg.
Resumen:	A basic premise of research on welfare state spending is that electoral incentives matter, with voters backing programme expansion and opposing retrenchment. However, the evidence supporting this premise is mixed. Departing from previous studies, we argue that these apparent null effects arise from an emphasis on the generosity of social benefits rather than their distribution. Shifting attention to the latter, we argue that individual preferences over the allocation of welfare spending depend on their relationship to economic vulnerability. Individuals in secure economic situations support schemes with benefits proportional to contributions, while those in more vulnerable positions favour systems based on recipient need. These heterogeneous preferences translate into public evaluations of policymaker performance, providing a pathway for the electoral connection. We test this argument in two stages. First, we use data from the European Social Survey to examine how individual precarity shapes preferences for needs-based versus contributory pensions. Second, we use the Executive Approval Database to assess how the composition of pension expenditures and perceptions of debt affect government support across eleven European welfare states from 1986 to 2019. Study findings provide evidence consistent with our theoretical expectations. Results highlight the micro-level foundations of policymakers' electoral incentives and provide a path forward for specifying connections between the allocation of social policy spending and mass politics.
Nota:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Welfare retrenchment ; Old-age pensions ; Policy preferences ; Occupational unemployment ; Poverty risk ; Government approval
Publicado en:	European journal of political research, 2026, p. 1-21, ISSN 1475-6765
Obra relacionada:	Marinova, Dani; Hellwig, Timothy, 2026, "Replication Data for: Welfare by Design: Public Responses to the Distribution of Old Age Pensions", CORA.Repositori de Dades de Recerca, V1 https://doi.org/10.34810/data2901

DOI: 10.1017/S147567652610067X

21 p, 576.8 KB

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