Swinging support? Economic cycles and changes in the public attitudes towards welfare recipients in Finland 1995–2010

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the variation in public attitudes towards welfare recipients according to economic cycles. This question is of great importance at the time of recent fiscal crisis across Europe. Previous research has indicated that economic recession leads to declining welfare state support, although some findings show stronger support during times of increased financial strain. Finland provides ample opportunity to investigate the effects of situational factors, as it experienced two severe economic downturns during the period of examination. Unlike many previous studies, we also considered whether the association between economic cycles and attitudes was dependent on socioeconomic status. Analyses reveal that high unemployment and economic downturns diminish public support for welfare provisioning. Furthermore, the results show that both individual and spousal unemployment, as well as social class position, are associated with people’s attitudes towards welfare recipients. These associations remain when the national unemployment rate and GDP growth rate are taken into account. Overall, the working class has stricter opinions of welfare recipients during economic downturns, whereas the opposite is true for the service classes and the self-employed. Moreover, men have stricter attitudes towards welfare recipients during economic recessions.

KEYWORDS:

• Public support
• social assistance
• economic cycle
• unemployment
• Finland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Susan Kuivalainen is the Head of the Research Department at the Finnish Centre for Pensions. Prior, she has worked as a research professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare and has hold the professorship in the Social Insurance Expert Training Programme at the University of Turku. She acquired her PhD in Social Policy from the University of Turku in 2004. Her research interest includes socio-political systems, poverty and inequality and welfare policy.

Jani Erola is Professor of Sociology at the University of Turku. He was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2013 for his project Intergenerational Cumulative Disadvantage and Resource Compensation (INDIRECT, ERC-2013-CoG-617965) and has been editing the Acta Sociologica – journal since 2014. He acquired his PhD in Economic Sociology from the Turku School of Economics in 2004. His research interests include social inequality, family formation, intergenerational social mobility and sociological research methods.