Education Legitimates Income Inequality: Normative Beliefs in Communist and Market-oriented Nations

• In Event: 411 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Education and Inequality.

Abstract

Using data from large, representative national samples in in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia, Finland, and the Netherlands, we focus on moral norms concerning what is empirically a major source of income inequality in the modern world: Education. Comparing ideal returns to education in formerly Communist nations – where the ruling elite was egalitarian, schooling was free, returns to education modest, and alternative investments absent-- and in market-oriented societies where the opposite holds, allows us to examine the influence of institutional arrangements on moral norms. We find that the public in all countries favor large rewards for education and that this legitimates a great deal of income inequality. This is consistent with Aristotle's claim that people believe job performance merits reward because it makes valuable contributions and, moreover, this moral reasoning is shared by all classes and in all societies, suggesting that some aspects of cultures of inequality are substantially resilient to institutional arrangements. Our results are inconsistent with credentialism, radical egalitarianism, the hegemonic power of dominant political elites, and moral stances suggested by human capital arguments.

Authors

• Jonathan Kelley, University of Nevada, Reno

• Mariah Debra Evans, University of Nevada, Reno