The Legitimation of Income Inequality in State-socialist and Market Societies

What attitudes relating to differences in occupational earnings did people in state-socialist societies hold before and after the transformation in 1989, compared with people in market-regulated societies? And, how can differences between and changes within these societies in attitudes towards income inequality be explained? To find out, hypotheses are tested using survey data from the International Social Survey Programme, comparing several state-socialist societies with several market societies both before (1987) and after (1992) the political and economic transformation. Before the transformation, the public in central and eastern Europe was much more egalitarian than in market-regulated societies. The results show that the amount of income inequality that people think legitimate has increased in all countries, but the increase was far more dramatic in former state-socialist than in market-regulated societies. Differences in the class and demographic composition of the population hardly explain variations in inequality attitudes between societies, but differences in perceptions of income inequality do.