Legacies of a Strong Welfare State: Attitudes toward the Role of Government in Economic Redistribution among Polish Youth
Loading...
Date
2019-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
At the ideological heart of the Communist era in Eastern Europe was the view that government should be a centralizer and redistributor of economic resources among all. This ideology was indoctrinated into the youth during the Communist era, and prior research shows that youth internalized it and exhibited preferences for a strong governmental role in economic redistribution. With such indoctrination, we would expect that the legacy of the Communist era would exert a strong effect on individuals’ attitudes towards the state, but for how long and how strong is not well known. Using the Polish Panel Survey POLPAN from 1988 to 2013, I compare youth opinions on State Paternalism in each five-year wave, and explore how the legacy of communist ideas shapes attitudes towards the welfare state. The results showed that overall youth in the immediate period after the fall of communism in Poland held a more positive evaluation of State Welfare support than youth further removed from such a time when compared to their elder counterparts. Furthermore, age did affect evaluation of State Welfare support policies—but only in certain waves and with certain age groups. The statistical analysis show that Polish youths’ attitudes towards socialist policies and capitalism vary by cohort. Over time, youth in Poland have progressively grown more distant from State Welfare support ideals. I discuss how the communist legacy does not appear to withstand the test of time for youth evaluation of such policies has grown increasingly negative as compared to their elder counterparts as the communist era fades into memory.
Description
Keywords
Poland, Youth, State Paternalism, Post-Communism