Race of Recipient and Support for Welfare in Canada

Allison Harell and Stuart N Soroka

CIRANO Working Papers from CIRANO

Abstract: Drawing on a unique experimental design, this paper examines the ways in which racialized images influence attitudes toward redistributive policy. While work in the US points to a strong racialization of welfare attitudes, little research explores the ways in which race may structure attitudes about welfare elsewhere. In the Canadian context, our results suggest that support for redistribution is lower when recipients are Aboriginal than when they are portrayed as white or from another racial minority. As we have seen in the US, then, support for welfare is related to perceptions about the race of the recipient, as well as the type of benefit received. Cet article utilise une approche expérimentale novatrice pour examiner la façon dont les images racisées influencent les attitudes à l'endroit de l'État providence. Alors que des recherches américaines pointent une forte racialisation dans les attitudes en faveur des politiques de redistribution et de l'assistance sociale, de telles études demeurent encore rares au sein d'autres réalités nationales. Dans le contexte canadien, nos résultats suggèrent que le soutien à l'endroit des politiques de redistribution est moins élevé lorsque les bénéficiaires appartiennent aux autochtones (plutôt qu'aux blancs ou à d'autres groupes raciaux). Ainsi, comme aux Etats-Unis, les opinions face à l'assistance sociale sont étroitement liées à la perception de la race des bénéficiaires, ainsi qu'au type de l'avantage reçu.

Keywords: Social assistance; Aboriginals; Race and Ethnicity; Welfare; Public Opinion; Assistance sociale; autochtones; race et ethnie; opinion publique (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cir:cirwor:2010s-42

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