The Workplace Foundations of Inequality Beliefs

• In Event: 2357 - Sociology of Work and the Workplace

Abstract

Sociological analyses of inequality beliefs have largely focused on status attributes and their implications for cuasual interpretations and support for governmental interventions. In this article, and building on labor process literatures, we offer an important, institutionally-centered corrective by arguing that relational workplace interactions are profoundly influential for general orientations regarding inequality and for several compelling reasons. Our analyses draw from the General Social Survey and examine how the hierarchical practice of authority, treatment by supervisors, and integration with co-workers impact: (1) perceptions of inequality’s functional necessity; (2) individualistic causal attributions, and; (3) the degree to which government-based redistributive interventions are supported. Results, which control for material rewards of employment and decompose relative impacts, are notable. Vertical workplace relations have significant conservatizing (in the case of authority-centered relations) and liberalizing (when one experiences supervisory injustice) explanatory impacts—impacts that surpass the influence of wages, job benefits and other influential controls. Positive horizontal (i.e., coworker) relations generate largely liberal inequality orientations. These effects are robust and hold substantial explanatory weight, according to our decomposition analyses, and are muted or exacerbated depending on labor market context (i.e., public versus private sector) and status congruence/incongruence by race and gender. Our results are broadly important by grounding the sociological understanding of generalized inequality beliefs in institutional relations, interactions and hierarchical experiences.

Authors

• Vincent J. Roscigno, Ohio State University

• Martha Crowley, North Carolina State University

• George Wilson, University of Miami

• Jill Evelyn Yavorsky, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

• Oneya Fennell Okuwobi, Ohio State University