South Koreans’ willingness to fund welfare reflects perceived tax norms

A new study from South Korea suggests that the politics of taxation may depend less on how high people believe their current tax burden is than on what they think taxes can achieve. When citizens see taxation as a route toward a welfare state that matches their aspirations, they may become more willing to pay—even when they already consider existing taxes expensive. The finding challenges a familiar assumption in public-finance debates: that increasing taxes inevitably reduces public support. Instead, the research indicates that people’s judgments are tied to a comparison between the society they have and the social safety net they want.

The study, conducted by Youngrok Kim of the University of Hyogo and published in the International Review of Economics, examines the psychological foundations of tax attitudes using nationally representative survey data from South Korea. It focuses on two related questions. The first is individual willingness to pay taxes to support welfare programs. The second is the strength of “injunctive norms”—social expectations about what people ought to do, including how much different groups ought to contribute. Together, these measures capture both personal acceptance of taxation and the broader social approval that can give a tax system legitimacy.

The distinction between current conditions and desired conditions is central to the analysis. Survey participants were asked, in effect, to evaluate the tax burden and welfare provision they perceived in the present, while also expressing what they considered desirable. That creates a preference–reality gap: the distance between the welfare state people believe exists and the welfare state they believe should exist. In economic and political terms, this gap can signal unmet demand for redistribution. In psychological terms, it can change the meaning of taxation. A tax payment may feel like a loss when it appears to fund an unresponsive system, but like a contribution toward a valued public goal when it is clearly connected to better welfare provision.

Kim’s results indicate that the desired welfare state is a particularly powerful predictor of tax acceptance. People who want a more generous welfare system tend to be more willing to pay taxes when they understand taxation as the mechanism for reaching that goal. This association persists even among respondents who perceive the existing tax burden as high. The result does not mean that citizens ignore the cost of taxes, nor that any tax increase will automatically win support. Rather, it suggests that perceived costs are evaluated alongside expected public benefits. The political question is therefore not simply “How much tax do people pay?” but also “What do people believe those payments will make possible?”

That connection also appears in the study’s analysis of injunctive norms. Injunctive norms differ from descriptive norms, which describe what people actually do. An injunctive norm concerns what people believe others should do. In taxation, it might take the form of a shared expectation that citizens should contribute fairly, or that wealthier households should bear a larger share of the cost of public services. Such expectations matter because tax systems rely on more than audits and penalties. Compliance is also shaped by tax morale, trust, reciprocity and the belief that contributing is socially appropriate.

According to the study, these expectations become stronger when taxation is explicitly linked to welfare improvement. The link appears to encourage broad support for progressive taxation, in which tax rates or effective contributions rise with income. This support is not presented as a simple expression of hostility toward high earners. Instead, it can reflect a judgment about proportional responsibility: people with greater financial capacity may be expected to contribute more to a collective system designed to provide security, reduce inequality or expand access to social services. The finding places progressive taxation within a wider framework of social approval, rather than treating it only as a technical instrument for raising revenue.

The preference–reality gap becomes especially important at the upper end of the income distribution. Larger differences between the welfare state people desire and the fiscal conditions they believe currently exist are associated with stronger expectations for redistribution. Respondents with a pronounced sense that current arrangements fall short of their ideal are more likely to support higher tax rates on upper-income earners. This pattern suggests that redistribution preferences may be generated not only by personal income or ideology, but also by an assessment of how far society is from a preferred social model. The more distant the desired outcome appears, the more acceptable stronger fiscal intervention may become.

The findings have implications for how governments communicate tax policy. A budget announcement that emphasizes rates, deductions and revenue targets may leave citizens focused on immediate financial losses. A policy that explains how additional revenue would improve welfare provision could activate a different evaluation, particularly among people who already favor a more generous social safety net. This does not remove the importance of institutional performance. If public services fail to materialize, or if taxpayers believe funds are mismanaged, the connection between taxes and welfare can weaken. Fiscal legitimacy depends on a credible exchange: citizens contribute, and the state delivers benefits they recognize as valuable and fairly distributed.

South Korea provides a revealing setting for this analysis because debates over welfare and taxation have intensified alongside broader questions about inequality, social protection and the role of government. Yet the study’s conclusions should not be read as a universal formula for tax reform. The data show associations between perceptions, norms and tax attitudes; they do not by themselves prove that changing welfare messaging will cause people to accept higher taxes. Political trust, institutional history, economic conditions and cultural expectations may alter how the same tax proposal is received in another country. The study also relies on survey responses, which measure stated preferences rather than directly observed payments or voting behavior.

Even with those cautions, the research points to a potentially powerful principle: people may tolerate, or even support, higher taxation when it is part of a convincing plan for achieving a welfare state they value. The social foundation of taxation is therefore built not only from enforcement, income and arithmetic, but also from collective ideas about fairness and the future. When citizens believe that others should contribute and that the resulting revenue will advance a shared vision of social protection, taxation can become more than a compulsory charge. It can be understood as a public investment—and that shift in meaning may determine whether ambitious welfare policies gain durable support.