Factors Affecting Welfare Attitudes in Different Types of Welfare States : Personal Interests and Values

This study examines the effect of personal interests and basic human values on the degree of support for a welfare state. Data from the European Social Survey, round 4 (2008) for 29 European countries (total n = 56,752) was used for the study. Results show that values such as collectivism and altruism promote demand for state intervention in welfare, while values like individualism and egoism negatively affect it. Income has the strongest negative effect on support for a welfare state among all the factors tested, even more so than gender and employment status. Compared to other countries (familialistic, social-democratic, conservative, and liberal), ex-communist countries seem to be more influenced by income, collectivistic values, and individualistic values. In Mediterranean (familialistic) countries, altruistic and egoistic values have a crucial impact on the demand for a welfare state, while there is little or no effect of personal attributes. In liberal, conservative, and social-democratic countries, values do not have much impact. In liberal and conservative countries, the effect of income is also not as strong as in ex-communist countries, while it is completely unobserved in social-democratic countries