Income Justice in Ukraine A Factorial Survey Study

This book presents the results of an empirical study of distributive justice attitudes in the post-Soviet, transforming society of Ukraine. The focus of this study is on the mechanisms of the formation of justice attitudes, which are explained within the methodological framework of analytical sociology. Two perspectives of research were applied in this study – a contextual and a comparative approach – in order to test the hypotheses stemming from a combination of the major statements of human capital, labor market, rational choice, socialization, adaptation, and cognitive dissonance theories, and the analysis of the current political and socio-economic situation in Ukraine. The innovative factorial survey method was applied as a measurement technique for people’s distributive justice attitudes. Bringing together fundamental theoretical statements on the nature of social justice and unique novel data on attitudes to justice, this study contributes to several research areas, including inequality studies and post-communist transformation research.