Blame for unemployment and support for unemployment benefits

ABSTRACT

It is necessary to expand the literature on social insurance preferences and examine how perceptions on the causes of staying unemployed influence preferences for unemployment benefits. First, this paper argues that people have lower support for unemployment benefits if they attribute unemployment to individual characteristics. Second, it is argued that the effect of individual attribution of unemployment on support for unemployment benefits is larger for people with low risk of unemployment. People who are less likely to receive future benefits are more sensitive to the possibility that receivers are free-riders who do not deserve benefits. Supporting individual level evidence is provided by statistical analysis using the European Social Survey (ESS).

KEYWORDS:

• Social policy preference
• attribution of unemployment
• unemployment benefits
• European Social Survey (ESS)

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Data available from ‘Unemployment Statistics.’ (2018). Eurostat, Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics#Longer-term_unemployment_trends (Accessed 2018-06-22).

2. The dataset in the ESS 4th wave and the 8th wave both include countries, such as Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. The ESS 4th wave dataset additionally includes Denmark and Greece; in addition, 8th wave dataset also includes Italy. There are 15 countries in the ESS 4th wave dataset and 14 countries in the 8th wave dataset.

3. Members of the population who are currently being educated, are permanently sick or disabled, retired, doing community or military service or doing housework are removed from the dataset.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yoon Soo Lee

Yoon Soo Lee is a graduate student studying public administration in Korea University. She won the 'Innovation, Competition and Regulation Law Center (ICR center) Director Prize' from the 'ICR center Nationwide Paper Contest for Graduate/Undergraduate Students'. She received her Bachelor's degree in Public Administration from Korea University.