![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Support for universal basic income is one of the key conundrums of the politics of welfare reform. Research shows that the predictors of UBI favourability also explain support for other policy alternatives, which differ substantially from a UBI, like targeted or conditional cash transfers. What is attractive or objectionable about a UBI to individuals, and which policy alternatives does public opinion actually prefer? In this paper, I tackle these questions with a conjoint experiment conducted in Spain. The results show that the universality of UBI, i.e., the fact that it is given to everyone, is what generates opposition. On the other hand, its unconditionality or the idea that it does not attach any conditions to recipients, is not particularly unpopular. However, the results also reveal that progressive funding mechanisms and restricting eligibility criteria to citizens only, can boost approval for this policy. These results have far-reaching implications for the study of welfare preferences, UBI support and theories on deservingness.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank a large number of individuals that have contributed to improving the experimental design in this study. It was originally presented at the CESS/Nuffield Experimental summer school of 2017, and at the experiment workshop held in January 2018 at IBEI (jointly organized by Laura Chaqués-Bonafont and Aina Gallego who also contributed a series of sessions on experimental designs). I want to thank Heikki Hiilamo for his interest in this project and for providing the funding to finance the data collection process. I want to thank Anna Maria Palau Roque and Luz Muñoz Márquez as IPs of the project that funded the first English revision of this manuscript. I am thankful for all of the discussions with Heikki Hiilamo and Tim Vlandas which certainly contributed to improving this manuscript too. I thank Tim Vlandas for the title suggestion too. Finally, I am grateful for Luke Shuttleworth’s final revision of the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Michael Betchel for his useful comments on how to present the analysis of results, and Laura Domingo for her indispensable assistance in the translation of the conjoint design and the survey fielded in both Finland and Spain.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hence, these are the features that reduce support for UBI.
2 It must be acknowledged, however, that this has not always been the case in Spain. Izquierda Unida (United Left), a left-wing party in Spain did include this proposal in their political manifesto during the 1990s, but the debate on the topic was never salient. In 2014, Podemos (We Can) included a UBI in their manifesto for the 2014 European Parliament Elections. By 2015, Podemos eliminated this proposal from their political program, and, since then, no other party has officially included this policy in its manifesto.
3 A minor exception is benefit generosity, with which I find that the lowest quantity (€200) significantly reduces support with respect to covering living costs.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Leire Rincon
Leire Rincón is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Political Sociology and Social Policy, at the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt University. Before, she was a pre-doctoral researcher at the University of Barcelona (UB) and Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). This paper is part of her PhD dissertation.