Benefit or procedure? Determinants of perceived distributive fairness in rural China

• We use original survey data on Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) collected in 2019 from rural China to examine citizens’ fairness judgments. • Villagers who were beneficiaries of the TPA program are more likely to consider TPA fair. • The positive effect of material benefits on fairness judgments decreases when villagers know that beneficiaries were selected via deliberation. • The beneficial effect of procedural awareness on fairness judgments is larger for non-beneficiaries of the TPA program. • Procedural justice functions as an equalizer in maintaining the consent of non-beneficiaries in supporting government policy. Although distributive fairness significantly affects a wide range of political attitudes, such as legitimacy perceptions, our understanding of the determinants of individuals’ fairness judgments in countries without competitive elections, which adopt deliberative practices in lieu of popular elections in decision-making, remains inadequate. Using original survey data about the Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) program in rural China, we find that the awareness of public deliberation in poverty identification is a dominant determinant of individuals’ fairness judgments about TPA. Moreover, this procedural awareness dampens, rather than promotes, the positive effect of material benefits on perceived fairness, meaning that the awareness boosts individuals’ fairness judgments, especially among non-beneficiaries. The findings suggest that the poor segment of Chinese rural citizenry does care about the procedure through which the allocational decisions are made other than instrumental or substantive outcomes. Procedural justice functions as an equalizer that maintains the consent of non-beneficiaries or economic “losers”. Our study enhances the understanding of distributive fairness beyond Western advanced economies.