Exploring the gender gap in welfare attitudes: relational skills and perceptions of pay equity

Abstract This article introduces a new aspect of skill profiles, ‘relational skills’, to examine how occupation-oriented relational skills can activate different perceptions of pay equity between genders and influence support for the welfare state. Relational skills refer to the degree of which a worker possesses skills pertaining to human interactions to those regarding the operation of machines or tools. We examine how relational skill ratio differently influences perceptions of justice in the pay system for men and women and how this shapes their welfare attitudes. By analyzing levels of support for redistribution in 30 OECD member countries targeted by the International Social Survey Program in 2009, we find the gender divide in social policy preferences to be the widest in high relational skill occupations. We argue that this divide is associated with the significant contrast between men and women in whether they perceive their pay to justly reflect their efforts and skills. Our findings suggest that women’s perceptions of discriminatory wage scales and support for the welfare state will be most prominent in occupations that present evaluation ambiguities or gender ascriptions that challenge women from breaking the glass ceiling.