The Effect of Social, Political, and Religious Factors in Preferences for Redistribution: A Study in Iran

Karimi, Faezeh; Vahidmanesh, Atiyeh

doi:10.22059/jte.2025.388359.1008970

The Effect of Social, Political, and Religious Factors in Preferences for Redistribution: A Study in Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jte.2025.388359.1008970

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of social status, value and political attitudes on individuals' approach to income redistribution by the government. This research was conducted using the seventh wave of the Global Values Survey for 2020. The findings show that in Iran, younger, more educated, and lower-income individuals have a greater demand from the government for redistribution. Women and urban residents also preferred government intervention more than men and rural residents. Religious attitude, and especially political attitude, is also important factors determining individuals' economic preferences; so that religious people were less interested in government intervention than non-religious people, while individuals with a political attitude that seeks change in the country's current political system had a greater preference for government action to redistribute wealth than conservatives who want to maintain the status quo. This can show that although economic factors play a key role in determining individuals' redistribution preferences, the role of social and cultural values cannot be ignored.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Alesina, A., & La Ferrara, E. (2005). Preferences for Redistribution in the Land of Opportunities. Journal of Public Economics, 89(5-6), 897-931.

Alesina, A., & Angeletos, G. M. (2005). Fairness and Redistribution. American Economic Review, 95(4), 960-980.

Alesina, A., & Giuliano, P. (2011). Preferences for Redistribution. In Handbook of Social Economics (1, 93-131). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Alesina, A., & Fuchs-Schündeln, N. (2007). Good-bye Lenin (or Not?): The Effect of Communism on People's Preferences. American Economic Review, 97(4), 1507-1528.

Barber, M., & Pope, J. C. (2019). Does Party Trump Ideology? Disentangling Party and Ideology in America. American Political Science Review, 113(1), 38-54.

Baremboim, I., & Karabarbounis, L. (2008). One dollar One Vote. The Economic Journal, 121(553), 621-651.

Benabou, R., & Ok, E. A. (2001). Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The POUM Hypothesis. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(2), 447-487.

Benabou, R., & Tirole, J. (2006). Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), 699-746.

Brant, R. (1990). Assessing Proportionality in the Proportional Odds Model for Ordinal Logistic Regression. Biometrics, 46(4), 1171–1178.

Choi, G. (2021). Individuals’ Socioeconomic Position, Inequality Perceptions, and Redistributive Preferences in OECD Countries. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 19(2), 239-264.

Cohen, G. L. (2003). Party over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 808-822.

El Rafhi, B., & Volle, A. (2020). The Effect of the Arab Spring on Preferences for Redistribution in Egypt. Review of Income and Wealth, 66(4), 875-903.

Guillaud, E. (2011). Preferences for Redistribution: An Empirical Analysis Over 33 Countries. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 11, 57-78.

Iacono, R., & Ranaldi, M. (2021). The Nexus between Perceptions of Inequality and Preferences for Redistribution. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 19(1), 97-114.

Kim, H., & Lee, Y. (2018). Socioeconomic status, perceived inequality of opportunity, and attitudes toward redistribution. The Social Science Journal, 55(3), 300-312.

Marx, P. (2014). The Effect of Job Insecurity and Employability on Preferences for Redistribution in Western Europe. Journal of European Social Policy, 24(4), 351-366.

McCarthy, A. F., Davis, N. T., Garand, J. C., & Olson, L. R. (2016). Religion and Attitudes toward Redistributive Policies among Americans. Political Research Quarterly, 69(1), 121-133.

Meltzer, A. H., & Richard, S. F. (1981). A Rational Theory of the Size of Government. Journal of political Economy, 89(5), 914-927.

Piketty, T. (1995). Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110(3), 551-584.

Ravallion, M., & Lokshin, M. (2000). Who Wants to Redistribute?: The Tunnel Effect in 1990s Russia. Journal of Public Economics, 76(1), 87-104.

Train, K. E. (2009). Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Williams, R. (2016). Understanding and Interpreting Generalized Ordered Logit Models. The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 40(1), 7-20.

World Values Survey Association. World Values Survey Data. Retrieved from https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.

Zampelli, E. M., & Yen, S. T. (2021). Individual Attitudes toward Government’s Role in Redistributing Income in the United States: Analysis by Ideological Subgroups. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 19, 115-137.