Mass Attitudes toward Inequality and Redistribution in East Asia

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In advanced industrialized countries, there are growing conversations about the political consequences of globalization and structural changes in the labor market. Faced with rising economic insecurity and income inequality, scholars have examined the factors that explain mass attitudes toward economic inequality and support for redistribution. A growing body of literature concludes that material self-interest does not always explain how individuals view economic inequality and redistributive policies. Scholars also emphasize the role of social and cultural factors, ranging from perceptions of social status to racial and ethnic identities to cultural shifts. The mushrooming literature on populism suggests that political polarization in North America and Western Europe is closely related to how these social and cultural factors shape perceptions of how much and for whom resources should be redistributed.

The panel examines mass attitudes toward inequality and redistribution in East Asia, where social and cultural contexts differ significantly from those in North America and Western Europe. If perceptions of inequality and preferences for redistribution depend on the social and cultural context, it is important to examine a variety of regional environments. East Asia has undergone important socioeconomic changes, such as deindustrialization, automation, population aging, and economic globalization, but how East Asia's specific social and cultural context has played a role in influencing mass perceptions of income inequality and support for redistribution remains understudied. The four papers examine various social, economic, and cultural factors as important mediators or determinants of public opinion on inequality and redistribution. In particular, Sungmin Rho examines the interplay of meritocracy and gender norms in South Korea to explain why structural changes in the labor market might undermine young male voters' support for gender equality policies, while Adam Hur, Gidong Kim, and Baekkwan Park study how generational differences affect public opinion on redistribution. Xian Huang focuses on China's social divide and uses the theoretical concept of "risk pooling" to understand how different social groups form preferences regarding social insurance. Finally, ByeongHwa Choi and Yesola Kweon investigate how the aging population in Japan, facing economic insecurity, perceives the distributional consequences of trade and welfare policies.

The panel uses a wide range of methods, including in-depth interviews, surveys, and controlled experiments, to uncover mechanisms underlying the role of social, economic, and cultural factors. This panel contributes to the current literature by providing empirical evidence on how these factors play out in the East Asian context and promote meaningful conversations about income inequality and redistribution in the East and West.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Structural Labor Market Changes, Moral Emotion, and Anti-feminism in South Korea - Sungmin Rho, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

• Generational Differences in Redistributive Beliefs and Democratic Support - Aram Hur, The Fletcher School, Tufts University; Gidong Kim, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies; Baekkwan Park, University of Missouri

• Preferences for Social Insurance and Redistribution in China - Xian Huang, Rutgers University

Chair

• Xiaobo Lu University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Xiaobo Lu University of California, Berkeley

• John Yasuda Johns Hopkins University