Solidarity and Welfare Spending in a Context of Crisis: A Research Note

Abstract This paper explores the extent to which variations in community-level welfare spending are reflected in individual-level attitudes of solidarity in a Romanian context defined by economic crisis. To this end, the study combines a static assessment of the relationship between local welfare expenditures and solidarity (employing 2012 WVS data) with a dynamic evaluation of how crisis-driven cuts in welfare spending have affected the sense of solidarity (drawing on 2009-2013 RES panel data). Multilevel regression analyses provide robust evidence that residing in communities with higher social expenditures tends to stimulate solidaristic attitudes towards vulnerable segments of the population. While variations in solidarity occurred in the context of crisis, they generally conformed to a growth pattern. Notably, this increase in solidarity is only marginally attributable to local welfare rollbacks; rather, it relates more closely to shifts in individual-level factors, such as generalised trust, religiosity, and economic optimism.