Economic Inequality and Prosocial Behavior: A Multidimensional Analysis

Abstract

Rising economic inequality has become a widespread trend and concern in recent decades. Economic inequality is often associated with pernicious consequences such as a decrease in individual health and social cohesion and an increase in political conflicts. Does economic inequality have a negative association with prosocial behavior, like many other aspects of inequality? To answer this question, this dissertation investigates the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior, particularly charitable giving, by conducting three empirical studies. The first study is a meta-analysis on the overall relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior. Results from 192 effect sizes in 100 studies show that there is a general small, negative relationship between economic inequality and different forms of prosocial behavior. Moderator tests demonstrate that social context, the operationalization of prosocial behavior, the operationalization of economic inequality, and average age of participants significantly moderate the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior. The second study differentiates between redistributive and non-redistributive charitable causes and examines how income inequality is associated with charitable giving to these two causes in China. Using synthesized data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) and official data, this study shows that income inequality has no significant relationship with charitable giving to redistributive causes, but it has a negative association with charitable giving to non-redistributive causes. Of the four moderators, only education significantly moderates the relationship between income inequality and redistributive giving. The third study tests whether and how government social spending mediates the relationship between income inequality and charitable giving. Using the US county level panel data, this study finds there is no significant relationship between income inequality and government social spending as well as between government social spending and charitable giving. Thus, government social spending does not significantly mediate the relationship between income inequality and charitable giving. However, income inequality has a robustly and significantly negative relationship with charitable giving. In sum, this dissertation furthers our understanding of the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior, especially charitable giving. Given the higher economic inequality facing many countries, it is a timely dissertation and has important practical implications.