Income Distribution and Social Tolerance

Social tolerance, i.e. the tolerance for the intrinsic diversity of large social groups, can be viewed as a synergic effect of the features of both individuals and socio-economic environment. This paper proposes a twofold contribution to the literature. First, it advances a conceptual framework in which tolerance at individual levels is explained by social polarization—in the form of income distribution—and the perceived quality of the social relationships and structures. Second, the regression analysis—involving micro-data from World Values Survey covering a time span between 2010 and 2014, for 48 countries—provides robust evidences for a non-linear impact of income distribution on social tolerance. This impact appears to be U-shaped and displays a pronounced degree of asymmetry. Also, labour market position, education, class self-identification, gender, age, marital status, levels of individuals’ personal security and sharing of post-materialist values matter in explaining social tolerance. The same main determinants contribute to the formation of both social tolerance and social capital. The differences are related to the amplitude as well as to the degree of symmetry for the corresponding non-linear transmission channels.