Economic fluctuation and shifts in popular solidaritywith unemployed people

Abstract

Over the past decades, the social protection of unemployed people has been high on policy agendas of many welfare states. Here, we address the question how the Dutch general public’s solidarity with the unemployed-in terms of the welfare benefits they would grant this group-has been influenced by economic developments and changes in unemployment rates over a longer time period. We analyse repeated cross-section data from the Netherlands (1975-2010). Our findings show that in times of higher unemployment people’s solidarity with the unemployed is higher, while independently from that, in times of economic downturn solidarity is lower. These macro-level effects vary only little across social groups, yet we do find that the unemployment rate affects people’s solidarity more positively during economic good times.