Perceived Welfare Deservingness of the Unemployed in Eastern versus Western Europe: Similar Levels but Different Degrees of Polarization?

In this paper, we investigate whether the communist legacy and economic and institutional differences between Eastern and Western European countries also translate into substantial differences in the perceived welfare deservingness of unemployed people in the two parts of the continent. Using European Social Survey data, we find that the Eastern Europeans are clearly more divided in their solidarity with the unemployed. However, contextual factors have a limited effect on the levels of perceived deservingness: these are slightly higher in Western Europe, but the difference becomes insignificant once we control for population composition.