Who deserves? Explaining individual variations in the deservingness perceptions of social groups

The relevance of “deservingness perceptions” is well established in research on public opinion towards social policy with typical hierarchies of groups widely perceived to be more (the elderly, families), less (the poor, the unemployed) or least deserving (immigrants). Previous studies often assumed this hierarchy to be stable, resulting in considerable inequalities in groups’ prospects of obtaining beneficial policy. Yet, we know surprisingly little about whether and how perceptions of groups’ deservingness vary at the individual level. How homogeneous or heterogeneous are citizens’ deservingness perceptions? And are these perceptions affected by individual characteristics, such as a citizen’s group belonging or ideology? Drawing on research on ingroup favoritism and pocketbook voting, we argue that deservingness perceptions are less influenced by groups’ general social image than by individual respondents’ group belonging and ideology. Individuals perceive groups to whom they belong (ingroup) to be more deserving than outgroups. In addition, ideological beliefs are expected to shape deservingness perceptions. Thus, we argue that most variance occurs at the individual level, resulting in perceptions that are much more contested than the literature tends to claim. We draw on data gained through an online-survey fielded among German citizens of eligible voting age (approx. 5,600 respondents) in the last two weeks of the 2021 federal elections campaign. We explore deservingness perceptions with regard to 16 selected groups. Thereby, we extend previous research that has often focused on only a limited number of “needy” groups who are not the exclusive (and probably even not the primary) target of public policy, leaving aside relevant targets such as entrepreneurs, workers or the rich. We also go beyond the concept of perceived “welfare deservingness”, prevailing in the deservingness literature, to extend it to the question of which groups the government should do more or less for. The main finding of this study that social images of groups are much more complex and heterogeneous, than previously suggested, has crucial implications for our understanding of social dynamics, the voter-party-relation and (unequal) policy responsiveness.