Meritocratic Ideals and Beliefs: Social Divides in Normative–Descriptive Alignment across Europe

The persistence of meritocratic beliefs despite enduring social inequalities raises a central question about the legitimation of inequality: why do people perceive social outcomes as deserved when opportunities are unequally distributed? One possible explanation is that individuals who endorse meritocratic principles are also more inclined to perceive existing outcomes as deserved, a form of normative--descriptive alignment consistent with just-world reasoning. Yet the strength, social distribution, and contextual variability of this association remain unclear. Using Round 9 of the European Social Survey, we analyse 33,811 respondents in 29 European countries through multilevel models distinguishing within- and between-country variation in normative support for meritocracy. We find a positive but modest average association, substantially smaller than differences linked to education, political orientation, and subjective economic circumstances. Crucially, alignment is socially and contextually differentiated. It is particularly strong among respondents experiencing comfortable economic circumstances, a pattern robust across alternative specifications and more consistent with position-justification interpretations than with stronger alignment among disadvantaged groups. Higher education is also associated with stronger alignment, despite lower overall levels of descriptive meritocratic belief. At the contextual level, alignment is stronger in countries with higher human development and GDP per capita, whereas income inequality shows no significant moderating association. Political orientation, meanwhile, strongly differentiates levels of descriptive belief but not the strength of alignment. These findings demonstrate that the social determinants of meritocratic beliefs cannot simply be inferred from those of normative--descriptive alignment. Understanding meritocratic legitimation therefore requires examining not only whether ideals correspond to perceived reality, but also the social positions and national contexts in which this correspondence is strongest.