Overlapping Inequalities: Connecting Income Inequality With Health and Education Disparities Motivates Its Reduction

People often justify income disparities. But what if these disparities create inequality in access to health care or higher education? Across four studies, we aimed to investigate whether perceiving income inequality overlap with health and education could lead to lesser acceptance of economic inequality and greater support for actions to reduce it. In Study 1 (N = 320), we found that perceived overlap predicted lower acceptance of economic inequality and greater support for collective actions and redistribution. Next, we found that exposing participants to information about high (vs. low) income inequality overlap with health (Study 2a; N = 178) and education (Study 2b; N = 184) decreased acceptance of economic inequality and increased support for collective actions and redistribution in fictitious societies. In Study 3 (N = 371), we replicated these results in a real-world context. Future interventions could show these overlapping inequalities to gain broader support for economic inequality reduction.