Paolo Bottero (p), Giulia Urso

Anna Magdalena Hanitzsch

Studying inequality perception is becoming increasingly important since multi-dimensional objective disparities—along with their perception—influence social cohesion, political stability, institutional trust, and economic development. These aspects are key to regional policies, as shown in research on the “geography of discontent” and Euroscepticism.
Perceived inequality, shaped by complex personal and social factors, remains challenging to study due to data scarcity. Increasingly, surveys such as the Eurobarometer, Social Survey Programme, and the European Values Study (EVS) are used to explore the geography of perceived inequality. However, knowledge of geographical distribution at granular scales remains limited. Our research addresses this gap through a NUTS-3 level analysis.
We integrate objective social, economic, environmental, and digital measures with perceived inequalities data from the EVS fifth wave (2017–2020) in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal across 278 NUTS-3 regions categorized as predominantly urban, intermediate, or rural.
Findings on objective inequalities reveal clear rural-urban divides. Perceptions do not show any significant differences between countries but high within-country variations. Rural regions report the highest perceived inequality, often reflecting objective marginalization. Intermediate regions exhibit the lowest perceptions despite higher objective inequalities than urban areas.
We contribute to the literature by providing a cross-country and within-country analysis of the relationship between objective and subjective inequalities on a granular scale, exploring what drives the latter. Our study highlights the importance of addressing disparities across different degrees of peripherality through policies informed by inequality perceptions to foster more equitable and sustainable development.

Anna Magdalena Hanitzsch (p), Melanie Krause

Rémi Peltier

This study examines the long-term impacts of industrialization-era air pollution on contemporary socio-economic outcomes in German cities. Using detailed historical city maps from 1880 to 1915, we construct a novel dataset documenting the spatial distribution of industrial facilities and residential expansion during the industrialization period. This dataset is integrated with atmospheric modeling and contemporary socio-economic data to analyze how the location of industrial facilities and prevailing wind patterns in the late 19th century affected urban development and, via persistent structures, still influences present-day income inequality.
Beyond air pollution, the study also considers transformative factors in German urban history, including the destruction and rebuilding after World War II, divergent post-war policies such as socialist urban planning in the GDR, and recent gentrification trends. Using spatial regression analysis at a 1km² scale, we provide insights into the persistence of neighborhood segregation. While some German cities can be characterized by the within-city East-West divide analyzed by Heblich et al. (2021) for British urban areas, many other cities show different patterns of spatial inequality shaped by their idiosyncratic development paths.
By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this study contributes to the literature on long-term environmental inequality and addresses the scarcity of empirical research on the roots of within-city income differences in German cities. The findings underscore the value of integrating high-resolution historical geospatial data into urban economic research and reveal how historical structures continue to shape income segregation in the urban context.

Rémi Peltier (p)

Kamila Borsekova

Access to affordable housing remains a major challenge in many developed countries. In this context, social housing plays a crucial role in public policies by ensuring regulated rents and expanding affordable housing supply. However, its spatial distribution significantly influ-ences residential segregation. In France, the concentration of social housing is a key driver of segregation, prompting policy measures to promote social diversity. The Solidarity and Ur-ban Renewal (SRU) law, particularly Article 55, mandates municipalities to meet minimum social housing quotas to enhance spatial equity.
This study investigates the effects of newly built social housing under the SRU law on neighborhood characteristics and social diversity. Unlike previous research, which primarily examines social housing distribution at the municipal level, we focus on the specific impact of new units and their tenants. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach and leveraging a natural experiment from the 2013 reform, we analyze how the SRU law influences neighborhood socioeconomic composition.
Our methodology relies on three datasets covering municipal-level compliance, social hous-ing geolocation, and household demographics. We assess neighborhood attractiveness, seg-regation, and social mix using income-based indicators. By distinguishing between SRU-driven housing and other social housing developments, this research provides new insights into the law’s effectiveness in fostering social diversity.

Kamila Borsekova (p), Ekaterina Yahyaoui, Maëlle Noir , Mary McGill, Jozef Michal Mintal

Inge Thorsen

Over the last decade, anti-gender rhetoric has emerged as a cornerstone of illiberal politics across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), with Slovakia exemplifying this trend. Political actors have strategically redefined “gender” as a divisive and destabilizing concept, framing it as an external imposition that threatens national sovereignty, religious traditions, and social cohesion. This politicization has contributed to growing public fatigue and resistance toward gender-related policies, diverting attention from broader structural inequalities. While existing scholarship has extensively analysed the intersection of anti-gender movements and illiberal governance, less attention has been paid to how the framing of “gender” itself influences public support for equality measures.
This paper addresses this gap by drawing on two original empirical datasets. First, we analyse data from the Volebny Kompas 2023 voting advice application (N=134,699), which captures voter attitudes on 39 political, economic, and societal issues. Second, we present findings from a June 2024 survey experiment (N=7,688) that randomly assigned respondents to different versions of an equality statement, systematically varying whether the term “gender” was included. Our results reveal that explicit references to “gender” significantly reduce support for equality-related policies among conservative and Eurosceptic respondents. However, paradoxically, these same individuals express strong backing for policies addressing women’s rights, economic redistribution, and social protections, suggesting that opposition to “gender” as a term does not necessarily imply rejection of equality measures.
We argue that anti-gender politics in Slovakia—and, by extension, the wider CEE region—draw on local historical legacies, religious narratives, and post-communist socio-economic grievances. Rather than signifying a simple rejection of equality, negative reactions to the language of “gender” reflect deeper anxieties about liberal democracy, neoliberal reforms, and perceived external impositions (such as EU directives). By examining how Slovak voters respond differently to variations in equality framing, this paper calls for more nuanced, context-specific communication strategies. We conclude that reclaiming “gender” in public discourse requires greater conceptual clarity, alongside policy initiatives that address socio-economic concerns, if we are to counter the spread of anti-gender narratives and foster democratic resilience.

Karl-Gunnar Severinsen, Arnstein Gjestland, Inge Thorsen (p), Jan Ubøe

Paolo Bottero

Using a quantitative approach in a causal design based on Norwegian registry data, our main ambition is to discuss how characteristics of the local labour market affect the integration process of refugees. We use data on four groups of refugees. The first group arrived in the mid-90s from Bosnia, the second group consisted of Kosovar refugees arriving in 1999, the third group arrived from Syria in 2015/16, while the fourth group is still arriving from Ukraine, after the Russian invasion in 2022. The refugees we are considering are upon arrival subject of a policy of forced dispersal across municipalities. We discuss the consistency between the observed dispersal policy and the de- mand for a successful labour market integration of the refugees. We evaluate a set of complementary measures representing the local demand for labour and employ a 3SLS approach to account for the simultaneity between getting a job and staying in the initial municipality during the process of social and labour market integration. Our analysis focuses on a set of conflicting goals, such as the balance between rural and urban areas and the integration of refugees. The results demonstrate that authorities should better account for local labour mar- ket conditions when designing their dispersal policy, while also considering local amenities and housing prices.