Everyone seems to be talking about inequality. But does this mean that people actually want their governments to do something about it? Most people do – a new ODI paper drawing on survey responses from 15,000 people in 40 countries found that 85% of people surveyed thought that inequality was too high, and over 70% thought that it was the government's responsibility to reduce it.

Looking beneath these averages produces some surprising results. Commonsense would suggest that the greater the inequality, the stronger the calls for change from the public. But this is not the case. The higher the actual level of inequality in a country, the less support there is likely to be for redistribution.

Instead, we find that it's when people fear that inequality will lead to conflict they are most likely to want their governments to do something about it. In countries with average inequality levels, for example, United Kingdom or Japan, about one-third of people are likely to strongly agree that governments should redistribute incomes, but that rises to nearly 45% among people in those same countries who think there is social conflict. Crucially for politicians, even the richest people in a society – who would potentially lose out from reductions in inequality – are more likely to strongly support redistribution if they fear social conflict. Where people think social conflict is low, just over a quarter of the richest 1% strongly supports redistribution. When they think conflict is high, that rises to well over a third.

Though it's perceiving social conflict that makes people most likely to want action on inequality, people feel particularly strongly about redistribution at lower levels of actual inequality and in countries where actual social conflict is lower. This may seem paradoxical, but it's quite possible that it's fear of change which is driving people's views, not the actual levels of inequality or of conflict. As people get used to higher levels of inequality they may become less afraid of the adverse social impacts, and stop being so open to potentially disruptive policy choices by governments.

There are three lessons from this research for campaigners calling for action on inequality – calls which will need public support if they are to succeed. First, it is encouraging to know that there is support from the general public in most countries for policies to tackle inequality. In particular, people are conscious of the harmful effects of high inequality, particularly in terms of rising tensions and the breakdown of social trust within a society.

Second, the data suggest that under some circumstances coalitions for redistribution could be built even with more wealthy individuals who would potentially lose from redistributive policies (for example by higher income taxes). There are limits to what we can say from survey data – it is difficult to obtain survey information from the very top of the distribution (for example, it is unlikely that Bill Gates has been included in the US sample we analysed), so it is impossible to test with our data whether this is true at the very top of the income scale. But it holds for the top 1%, and other examples, like the survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, suggest that the social cost of inequality is also in the minds of the richest and powerful of the world, in particular because of its threat to political stability.

Third, our study finds that the challenge is to keep that awareness and support at higher levels of inequality, when people have started to adjust their expectations. The best opportunity to tackle inequality, with the highest levels of popular support, is if governments act quickly when inequality is starting to rise. This may be a one-off opportunity. Once inequality is already high and entrenched in the political and economic system it may be harder to gain support and pursue redistributive policies.

Inequality is firmly on the agenda. The challenge now is to get action, and for that support for redistribution will have to move beyond the campaigners and the researchers and become mainstream. Data on existing attitudes shows that this is highly possible – but also that support is sometimes to be found in unlikely places.

Laura Rodriguez Takeuchi is a research officer in the growth, poverty and inequality programme at the Overseas Development Institute. Follow @ODI_development on Twitter.

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