How perceived income inequality affects charitable giving and volunteering: Assessing four mechanisms

• DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/38fyt
• Publication Date: 2024-01-14T05:00:58Z
• Authors: Michaela Neumayr; Joris Melchior Sc...
• Keywords: Altruism; Inequity aversion; General Social Survey; Social Inequality; Affect; Social comparison theory

Public concerns about economic inequality are large and growing, they have been shown to affect people’s charitable giving volunteering. While empirical literature addresses this issue, it provides little evidence on the mechanisms that might explain relationship. Numerous hypotheses from different disciplines proposed, with social disintegration hypothesis, conflict relative power aversion hypothesis among most commonly suggested ones. In study, we apply mediation analysis survey data Austria Germany (N=1691) assess which of these Our results support hypothesis: Individuals completely agree income is too high a 1 percentage point lower probability give charity (volunteer) due indirect relationship through generalized trust, 8 (7) points higher impure altruism, when compared those disagree high. addition, our reveal an unexpected differential role shows negative for but not