Walsweer, Jelmer Gosse (2025) Are we Justifying Inequality? Meritocratic Beliefs and Their Impact on Attitudes Towards Inequality. Bachelor thesis, Sociology.
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Abstract
In the past few years, populist movements increasingly promoted meritocracy as a solution to inequality in society, suggesting that success is a personal responsibility. Meritocracy is the idea that everyone has the same opportunities and success is determined by hard work and talent. However, this idea is controversial: on the one hand meritocracy tries to promote fairness by emphasizing equal opportunities, but on the other hand critics argue that it completely ignores structural factors such as social class or discrimination, with the risk of potentially legitimizing existing inequalities. Whilst inequality is growing in society, even lower class individuals that would benefit from redistribution of income, seem to vote more and more for populist parties with meritocratic ideals, that actually oppose redistribution of income. This study will research how belief in meritocracy influences support for redistribution by the government and whether the effect of meritocratic beliefs is reinforced by people's perceptions of inequality as being legitimate. In this paper secondary data from the LISS panel (Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences) is used, consisting of 1645 respondents of 18 years and older from the Netherlands. The data further covers perceptions and attitudes towards inequality in the Netherlands. The research mainly tries to find support for the hypothesis that meritocratic beliefs decrease the support for redistribution of income by making income inequality appear more justified. The results indicate that individuals with stronger meritocratic beliefs indeed show less support for redistribution, because they perceive income inequality as legitimate. Also, the results suggest that people who regularly interact with individuals of lower socioeconomic status show slightly more support for redistribution. Individuals put themselves higher on the social ladder on the other hand seem to slightly oppose redistribution. These were included as control variables and showed only weak effects. Ultimately, this study hopes to contribute to the understanding of why, although inequality is still rising, many people resist redistribution policies and have a negative attitudes towards inequality. There specifically is an important focus on meritocratic beliefs and how people think about inequality.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Redhead, D.J. |
| Degree programme: | Sociology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Sociology] |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jul 2025 09:04 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2025 09:04 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5394 |
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