Social Identity Costs to Claiming Benefits: Effects on Take Up and Support

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Economy

Abstract

Social identity matters for redistribution preferences. However, so far only the identity of others has been studied as a determinant of redistribution preferences (e.g., Alesina et al., 2023; Rueda, 2018; Rueda & Stegmueller, 2019). The influence of an individual's own identity and how it might be shaped through becoming or being a policy beneficiary has been neglected in research. I argue that taking up a social benefit such as unemployment benefits is associated with an identity cost. The extent of the cost is driven by the level of stigmatisation of the stereotype of the beneficiary group and is mitigated by the level of stigmatisation of an individual's other identities. Adding this psychological identity cost to the utility function of social policies results in a trade-off between the benefit of the policy and the identity cost. Individuals follow two paths to resolve this trade-off: 1) They decide not to take up the benefit and we would thus observe low take up levels of social benefits. 2) They take up the benefit but actively refrain from identifying with the prototype of the beneficiary group. This, I argue, would result in them not supporting the policy as much as would be expected based on their material self-interest. Using both observational and experimental data, I plan to test these mechanisms and integrate macro- and micro-level data to create a causal connection. By combining literature on preferences towards redistribution with political psychology, the project sheds new light on identity as a determinant of redistribution preferences.

Author

• Angela Odermatt, Princeton University