April 13, 2016, by Suzanne
What are the moral consequences of becoming unemployed?
Dr Abigail Barr, University of Nottingham
Abigail Barr, Luis Miller and Paloma Ubeda investigate how becoming unemployed affects people’s reasoning in the paper ‘Moral Consequences of Becoming Unemployed‘.
NIBS Co-Investigator, Dr Abigail Barr explains, “On the whole, people in employment or full-time education believe that people should be allowed to keep much of what they earn and that it is okay for those who work harder or who are more productive to earn more”. However the study discovered this changed and, “when people become unemployed, they let go of this belief and put a higher value on the re-distribution of money, which, in everyday life, would mean higher taxes for high earners in order to fund public spending on services and benefits”.
More details about the study and results can be found in the University of Nottingham’s press release or you can read the paper online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
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