Justice and fairness: Topline report launch

The European Social Survey (ESS) will be hosting an online event on Friday 2 October to mark the publication of a new Topline Findings report on Justice and Fairness in society.

This new report has been written by the team of external academics who proposed and designed the Round 9 (2018/19) Justice and Fairness module during our open call for questions in 2016.

The module aims to understand European attitudes towards the effects of significant increases in social inequalities over the last few decades.

Specifically, it sought to measure political procedural justice, fairness of income, fairness of educational and job opportunities, fairness of the distribution of resources, attitudes toward normative principles, social closure and belief in a just world.

The questionnaire design team and ESS core scientific team developed the initial proposal for inclusion in Round 9 of our survey, fielded amongst respondents in 27 countries during late 2018 and early 2019.

ESS Topline Results issue 10: Justice and Fairness explores attitudes towards economic and educational inequalities as well as views on the fairness of income and opportunities.

The launch of this latest issue in our Topline Findings series is the culmination of four years of dedication and hard work by the questionnaire design, core scientific teams, National Coordinators and field agencies and interviewers.

Three of the report’s authors - Guillermina Jasso (New York University), Bernhard Kittel (Vienna University) and Stefan Liebig (SOEP at DIW Berlin and FU Berlin) - will introduce their analysis at the event.

The event will be Chaired by ESS ERIC Director Professor Rory Fitzgerald and Deputy Director Eric Harrison will be the discussant.

Initial results will be presented on the views that respondents hold towards the principles that should guide the fair allocation of goods and burdens within a society and the fairness of incomes, life chances and political procedures.

The report was written by Jule Adriaans, Sandra Bohmann, Matteo Targa and Stefan Liebig, Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); Thomas Hinz, University of Konstanz; Guillermina Jasso, New York University; Bernhard Kittel, University of Vienna; and Clara Sabbagh, University of Haifa.

As with all our data, survey responses collected through the Justice and Fairness module are available to download for use in statistical software programmes or to analyse using our Online Analysis Tool.