International Social Justice Project, 1991 and 1996

The International Social Justice Project is a collaborative effort among 12 countries to conduct a comparative study of popular perceptions of economic and social justice in advanced industrialized nations. The countries participating in the study include Bulgaria, Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia for 1991), Germany (West Germany, and East Germany during its transition toward a democracy), Estonia, Great Britain, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, and the United States. Focused on normative social justice concepts such as entitlement, equality of economic opportunity, and reward distribution. Provides analysis of normative justice at a micro level, involving respondents' evaluation of justice or rewards received by individuals and small groups, and at a macro level, through the evaluation of fairness of reward distribution at the aggregate or societal level. Variables in the dataset include demographic characteristics of the respondent, such as age, sex, marital status, education, and occupation, actual and desired income, what factors respondents believe determine level of pay and their fairness, dependence on pension or social welfare programs, satisfaction with the sociopolitical system, perceived and/or preferred role of the government in job allocation, and standard of living.