Information about inequality in early child care reduces polarization in policy preferences

Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Fabian Mierisch, Guido Schwerdt and Simon Wiederhold ()

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 228, issue C

Abstract: We investigate public preferences for equity-enhancing policies in access to early child care, using a survey experiment with a representative sample of the German population (n≈4,800). We observe strong misperceptions about migrant-native inequalities in early child care that vary by respondents’ age and right-wing voting preferences. Randomly providing information about the actual extent of inequalities has a nuanced impact on the support for equity-enhancing policy reforms: it increases support for respondents who initially underestimated these inequalities, and tends to decrease support for those who initially overestimated them. This asymmetric effect leads to a more consensual policy view, substantially decreasing the polarization in policy support between under- and overestimators. Our results suggest that correcting misperceptions can align public policy preferences, potentially leading to less polarized debates about how to address inequalities and discrimination.

Keywords: Child care; Policy support; Information; Inequality; Discrimination; Survey experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C99 D83 I24 J13 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268124003949
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Information about Inequality in Early Child Care Reduces Polarization in Policy Preferences (2024)
Working Paper: Information about Inequality in Early Child Care Reduces Polarization in Policy Preferences (2024)
Working Paper: Information about Inequality in Early Child Care Reduces Polarization in Policy Preferences (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:228:y:2024:i:c:s0167268124003949

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106780

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().