Great Plains, Few Peaks: The Global Landscape of Egalitarian Beliefs

Using the 2019 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data on what 51,582 respondents in 34 countries thought different occupations “should earn”, this paper examines the importance of cross-national average differences in “fair pay ratio” beliefs relative to within-country differences in attitudes. It argues that a large majority of the population in all countries thinks that fair wage inequality would imply CEO/worker pay ratios that are (a) remarkably small compared to actual pay ratios and (b) remarkably similar. Because majority beliefs about the “fair” CEO/worker pay ratio are quite similar almost everywhere, cross-country comparisons of average attitudes towards fair pay ratios aggregate an egalitarian majority with an inegalitarian minority, whose beliefs differ from the egalitarian majority to differing degrees in different countries. The interesting question for analysis of cross-national differences in public redistributive policies therefore is why and how much the preferences of inegalitarian minorities within countries differ from those of the egalitarian majorities and how those minority preferences can become influential.