Inequality, Social Context, and Income Bias in Voting: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

The effect of inequality on income bias in voting is a contentious topic in the literature. In this article, we explore the effect of inequality in terms of social context. We argue that perceptions of inequality and regional economic inequality provide a social context in which citizens form relative class identity and shape their political behavior. We analyze individual-level surveys and administrative district-level data consisting of 252 South Korean administrative units in 2012–2020. The findings of the individual-level analysis suggest that perceptions of high inequality boost voter turnout, and that this effect is stronger among citizens with low incomes. As lower-income earners recognize themselves as being at a greater distance from the higher-income group, it activates a grievance effect and increases their incentive to participate in voting. The results from the district-level analysis suggest that the participation of lower-income individuals is more likely to increase in response to local inequality than the participation levels of their higher-income neighbors. Our findings suggest that the mass public utilizes their perceptions of inequality and the degree of intra-regional economic inequality as a heuristic to decide whether to turnout to vote, and that this occurs among both the rich and the poor.