What is fair? Why Americans are concerned about some (but not all) forms of inequality

CRIS SCIENTIFIC SEMINAR 2025-2026

Marissa Thompson
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

How do Americans decide what is (or isn’t) fair? Drawing from a nationally-representative conjoint experiment with open-ended text responses, this study illustrates the dimensions that inform normative judgments on how people prefer to distribute educational resources between two fictitious students with varying individual characteristics. 

First, I find that people prioritize lower performance outcomes but do not adjust for differences in effort levels. 

Second, some – but not all – demographic characteristics influence allocation decisions: respondents allocate additional time to those from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and to individuals with disabilities, likely in part because they perceive both disadvantage and potential for improvement for these groups. However, neither gender nor race significantly affect allocations; this appears to be due in part to the fact that respondents (1) do not believe that either boys or girls have a relative advantage and (2) do not perceive racial differences in improvement potential (in spite of recognizing racial differences in experiences of educational disadvantage). 

Finally, analysis of open-ended responses sheds light on how respondents justify their decisions through the perceived tradeoff between efficiency and equity. 

Overall, I argue that Americans exhibit patterns of what I term contingent redress, where inequality beliefs are influenced by subjective cultural frameworks about which demographic groups are disadvantaged, how they came to be in this position, and what (if anything) can be done about it.

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