Rebecca Bruens wins Founder's Medal 2024

Rebecca Bruens won this year's prestigous Founder's medal in the Honour's postgraduate category of 2024. Rebecca was supervised by Prof. Debra Sheperd and her thesis was titled "Counting the social class: The role of class imagery and subjective social location of preferences towards redistributive policy in South Africa". Her research investigated preferences regarding redistributive policies and the role that subjective perceptions of social status and class imagery play in affecting perspectives regarding redistributive policies in South Africa (abstract below).

Dr. Grace Leach, who was supervised by Prof. Dieter Von Fintel was a runner up in the PhD category and received a special mention from the adjudicators for her excellent work. Her thesis was titled "Essays on the economics of early childhood development : spatial inequalities, service provision, and parental investment".

Rebbeca Bruens abstract:

 Despite South Africa’s extreme income inequality, public support for redistributive policy remains fragmented and inconsistent. This study investigates how individuals’ subjective social position and class imagery influence their preferences towards redistribution. Drawing on the 2019 International Social Survey Programme’s Social Inequality (ISSP) module and employing structural equation modelling (SEM), the paper examines how objective deprivation, perceived social mobility, and contact with different wealth groups affect normative beliefs about taxation, government responsibility, and fairness. Results show that individuals with higher subjective status and less exposure to poorer groups are less supportive of redistribution, while those with lower status and greater perceived mobility are more supportive, though often conflicted. Contact with poorer people predicts greater support for redistribution and belief in government efficacy. In contrast, inegalitarian class imagery had limited predictive power, suggesting that cognitive recognition of inequality may not translate into political support for redistributive action without accompanying socio-political knowledge. The findings underscore the importance of social exposure and perceived mobility in shaping redistributive preferences and suggest that fostering awareness of inequality may require more than highlighting structural disparities—it also depends on individual experiences and aspirations.

(Thank you to Prof. Debra Sheperd and Ms Rebecca Bruens for the information and abstract supplied in this article).