Enquête à Berne, Lausanne, Neuchâtel et St-Gall sur la légitimité populaire de l'Etat social - 2001

This project examines the factors that determine support or rejection of welfare state measures, either based on individualised allowances (e.g. welfare or professional pension system), or on collective responsibility, which is institutionalised with egalitarian allowances (e.g. national pension system), or with granting of collective rights to groups (e.g. maternity leave). The project features a survey carried out with standardised face-to-face interviews on a representative sample (800 respondents) in four Swiss cities, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Bern and St.Gallen. The legitimacy granted to the welfare state should namely depend on recognition of minorities (e.g. immigrants, homosexuals, unemployed), on defence of national values, on awareness of structural inequalities (e.g. between men and women), on feelings of powerlessness, and on risk evaluations. Opinion differences between cities, social classes, age and gender groups will also be analysed.