Exploring the gender gap in welfare attitudes: relational skills and perceptions of pay equity.

This article investigates how occupational relational skills—defined as the ratio of interpersonal (people-oriented) to instrumental (tool- or machine-oriented) skills—influence gendered perceptions of pay equity and support for welfare state redistribution across 30 OECD countries using 2009 International Social Survey Program data. It finds that women working in high relational skill occupations are more likely than men to perceive their pay as unjust due to evaluation ambiguities and gender-based ascriptions, which in turn increases their support for redistribution. Conversely, women in occupations with high instrumental skills tend to perceive pay as more just and show less difference from men in welfare attitudes. The study highlights that the gender gap in social policy preferences is most pronounced in occupations emphasizing interpersonal skills, suggesting that women’s welfare attitudes are shaped not only by economic vulnerability but also by workplace gender discrimination and perceptions of pay fairness.