Merit, Need, Entitlement? Investigating Fairness of Housing Evaluations

Abstract The article empirically investigates how individuals evaluate unequal housing conditions with respect to the distributive justice principles of merit, need, and status entitlement. Also addressed is the “double standards” hypothesis. The data stem from an online survey fielded to a random sample of the population of a mid-sized German city (N = 1,154). In a factorial survey experiment, respondents rated example residential constellations of fictitious persons with respect to their perceived fairness. The vignettes varied merit-, need-, and entitlement-related factors, and housing conditions. The findings show that respondents take these justice principles into account when making judgments about fair housing, and that need-related factors (having children) are more important than merit (professional performance). Further, there are double standards of the form that performance is applied differently based on the gender and occupational status of fictitious residents. The article finishes by discussing issues that should be addressed by future work and calls for more empirical studies on fairness of housing evaluations.