Attitudes and Expectations in Romania Related to the Social State

In the 15 years since Romania joined the EU, economic progress is obvious

Christine Leșcu, 15.06.2022, 01:41

In the 15 years since Romania joined the EU, economic progress is obvious: average net wages went up 3.5 times, the pace of economic growth was one of the highest in Europe, while GDP growth places Romania among the first in the Union. At the same time, statistics also show growing income inequality, a rise in school drop-out rates, and rising emigration. That being the situation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Romania planned a sociological study to plumb Romanian opinions about state involvement.

The result was the paper ‘Progressive Attitudes and Values in Romania’. The premise for the study was detailed for us by one of the co-authors, sociologist Claudiu Tufis:

“The public sphere is strongly anchored on the right, ideologically, and when it comes to values there is always talk of liberalism, of the market economy, of competition, respect for private property, of corruption and anti-corruption. There is also less talk about topics of interest for the largest part of the population, those who live one paycheck to the next. This was what motivated this initiative from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. We wanted to measure in some way if certain values usually associated with the left can be found among the public, because there isn’t much sociological research to look at such things directly.

For sociologist Claudiu Tufis, the term ‘progressive’ was not the most inspired choice. He would have even preferred the term ‘left leaning’, given that the broad brush topics in the polling are usually among left wing policies. For instance, social protection, state financing of education and healthcare, state intervention in the economy to ensure equitable living conditions, etc. Among the polling questions was that on progressive taxation, a topic under discussion now in Romania, in the sense of eliminating the single tax rate. Here is Claudiu Tufis:

“The first question that drew attention was that related to preferences on taxation, and the famous percentage of 73. Meaning that three quarters of the population believe that those with higher incomes should pay higher taxes. Of course, the discussion on progressive taxation is complex from an economic point of view, and progressive taxation in broad terms doesn’t say much. The way in which this principle of equitable taxation is implemented can take many forms, and the way in which this principle is implemented can take many forms. At the same time, the way in which it is implemented can also have very different outcomes. We didn’t have room in the questionnaire for such detailing. We could not inquire about preferences regarding various modes of progressive taxation. We know that, at a very general level, the population believes that those with higher wealth should be taxed more. However, beyond this question of progressive taxation there are questions about various ways in which the state should help those in need. One example is rent control, setting ceilings on rent, a topic that is not only under discussion in Western Europe, but is even implemented in Spain, or in Berlin, where they have rent control. There was never any serious discussion of this topic in the Romanian space. Regarding rent control, about a third, meaning 34%, believe strongly that this should happen, and about 30% more say that they want this rather strongly. If we add up the percentages, we get about 65% of the population believing that the state should put a ceiling on rents. Another question revealed that Romanians believe that the people who own more than one home should pay higher property taxes starting with the second home owned.

However, contradictions emerged in the answers to the questionnaire. Even though a majority of respondents believe the state should pay more in social assistance to disadvantaged categories, there are many who are against raising government spending. Here with details is Claudiu Tufis:

“There are areas in which respondents believe that government spending should increase in areas such as poverty reduction, unemployment benefits, health pensions, healthcare, and social assistance. However, here we get in a more complex discussions, because we have general questions within the limits in opinion polls. The answers to such general questions are usually something along the lines of ‘Yes, we should spend more money to reduce poverty, or finance better education and healthcare’. However, when we get to the other question, if they agree with raising taxation, or if they would be willing to pay more for such things, the situation changes to some extent. People are more reticent in saying that they would dole out more money for these things.

Given the very general nature of the questions, which address mostly humanistic ideals which we would be hard put to reject, contradictions are unavoidable. We asked Claudiu Tufis what would happen if we would reduce the level of generality, and ask more pointed questions:

“We are looking at support for various values, and try to discover sets of values. So we are not necessarily interested in the percentage of those in support of a certain idea, we are rather interested in seeing if those who support better financing of education have a similar opinion regarding healthcare, or if, by the same token, they want less spending for the military system. Which circles us back to that 73% support regarding taxation. If we had formulated the question along the lines of ‘Would you agree for those making over 3,000 lei a month to pay 50% more tax’, the answer would have clearly been different, because 3,000 lei is a relatively small salary for Romania. Therefore things change depending on the specificity of the question, on the clear situation we present to the respondent.

The conclusion of the study was that, in spite of such contradictions, in Romania there is massive support for the idea of a strong social state, which implements generous policies for more social equality.