Is there support for voluntary sterilization incentives in the U.S.? Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with a snowball sample of four families spanning three generations in Bucktown, a 95% white, middle-class neighborhood which sent David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1989. Interviews explain support and opposition to current Louisiana State Representative John LaBruzzo's policy suggestion to "end generational welfare" by offering citizens $1000 in exchange for having their fallopian tubes tied or receiving vasectomies. Most respondents expressed that the sterilization proposal was targeted at low-income blacks. Although work ethic deficiency was used to frame poverty and welfare-dependency, support and opposition for the proposal was ultimately divided along racial ideological lines. Although Bucktonians have disassociated themselves from Duke and are upwardly mobile socio-economically, right-wing populist ideology remains salient.

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The purpose of the current study is to investigate New Zealanders’ social attitudes towards the economic support for the aged provided by the New Zealand Superannuation Scheme. The structure and nature of those social attitudes is revealed. The study examines social attitude responses to determine if intergenerational justice plays any role in the nature of support for the aged. One thousand and eighty-three participants were selected from the electoral roll and all were sent a survey pack followed by two subsequent reminders. Five hundred and nineteen people agreed to participate. The hypothesis is that New Zealanders agree that economic support for the aged should be provided through the Superannuation Scheme, but that the nature of this support varies according to demographic characteristics and individual perceptions of intergenerational justice. The survey results found that respondents support the economic provision for the aged in the current Superannuation Scheme. However, they are less prepared to support those mechanisms that maintain the Superannuation Scheme and they consider intergenerational transferability of the Superannuation Scheme as important. A generational difference was found in the survey among younger respondents, those forty-one and below, with regard to need taking precedence for supporting the aged, concerning ideas about assessing the economic circumstances of the aged and ideas about the balance of ‘advantages and disadvantages’ distributed to different generations. Older generations, those respondents aged forty-two and above, supported the social democratic form of the Superannuation Scheme. They believed that entitlement to returns was more important than need and they opposed economic assessments for the receipt of the Superannuation Benefit. However, older generations did not believe that differences in the balance of ‘advantages and disadvantages’ between generations have occurred in New Zealand. The survey results indicate that New Zealand is unique compared with other developed countries in that there is little predictor value or correlation value for most of the demographic characteristics pertaining to welfare attitudes towards the economic support of the aged. Meanwhile, generation and household income have some predictor and correlation value in relation to welfare attitudes towards the New Zealand Superannuation Scheme. Finally, the Superannuation Scheme exists in a momentary formal state. It may be the non-transferability of this Scheme between generations that poses a threat to the economic support of the aged, given that the number of people in New Zealand reaching sixty-five is set to increase dramatically.

This essay explores if and how welfare attitudes in Sweden and in the United Kingdom have changed since the 1990s. Due to an increase in privatization and globalisation during the last 20-30 years, Sweden has become more economically liberal or right wing, aligning more with countries like the United Kingdom. The question therefore is to see if Sweden’s welfare attitudes have changed to become more like the welfare attitudes in the United Kingdom. There is a lack of research on how welfare attitudes change over time, as earlier research has focused more on comparison between countries or between groups. This essay uses empirical data from The International Social Survey Programme, in which three surveys from the years of 1996, 2006 and 2016 has been selected. In these surveys respondent have been asked how much responsibility they think the government should have for its citizens. The results show that the development in welfare attitudes in Sweden and United Kingdom are remarkably similar to each other. The analysis of the empirical data showed no differences between Sweden and the United Kingdom in welfare attitudes across all time periods. Compared to 1996, most groups in these countries wanted less state intervention in welfare generosities which is meant to aid poorer and more economically vulnerable people in their own society.