Welfare state deservingness in the era of mass higher education

Sebastian Diessner, Niccolo Durazzi, Federico Filetti, David Hope, Hanna Kleider, Julian Limberg and Simone Tonelli

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The educational composition of labor markets has changed dramatically in recent decades. In many advanced democracies, the majority of workers now possess a university education. We currently know very little about how this transformation has influenced perceptions of welfare state deservingness, which are closely linked to support for the welfare state. This article addresses that gap in the literature by carrying out an original survey with a sample of 3,916 respondents from the United States. The survey combines a conjoint experiment with an information provision experiment. We find causal evidence that people are less inclined to provide welfare state assistance to the university educated than the non-university educated. This is primarily driven by need-based considerations: The university educated are seen as less in need of support, due to their strong labor market position in contemporary knowledge economies.

JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Public Opinion Quarterly, 8, July, 2026. ISSN: 0033-362X

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/140161/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ehl:lserod:140161

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().