Economic segregation is associated with reduced concerns about economic inequality

Abstract

Economic segregation is the geographical separation of people with different economic means. In this paper, we employ an archival study of attitudes in regions with varying degrees of economic segregation and a series of experimental studies measuring reactions to hypothetical levels of segregation to examine how segregation affects concerns about inequality. Combining correlational and experimental methods and examining attitudes about economic inequality in both the United States and South Africa, we show that when individuals of different means are segregated from each other, people are less likely to engage in economic comparisons and are therefore less concerned by inequality. Moreover, we find that this is true even when people are exposed to (and are aware of) the same levels of inequality, suggesting that segregation in and of itself affects attitudes about inequality. Our findings highlight the importance of economic segregation in shaping public attitudes about organizational and societal economic inequality.

Fig. 1. Specification curve for the effect of economic segregation on attitudes about economic inequality across 918 specifications.

The horizontal blue line denotes the average effect size across specifications. The horizontal black line denotes a null effect (i.e., 0).

Fig. 2. Differences in concern about (top panel), and perceived fairness of (bottom panel), wage disparities between different job positions at Amazon.com when inequality was presented as mainly occurring between locations (Economic Segregation condition) or concentrated within locations (Economic Integration condition).

Box plots reflect 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles; N = 200. (Study 3).