ABSTRACT
The chapter introduces the reader to the relevance of wage distribution fairness in a post-socialist setting. Wage distribution is defined as the basic economic distributive process of societies, which consists of two dimensions: rules and outcomes. The chapter further explains the aims of the book, by first pointing to various gaps in the literature and then offering an approach to close the gap. First, it point outs that there are no appropriate social scientific tools to measure wage distribution fairness (due to its bi-dimensionality), so the book proposes a bi-dimensional measure for wage distribution fairness. Second, given the novelty of a bi-dimensional approach there is no baseline research available for wage distribution fairness, so the book investigates how the established theories explain wage distribution fairness. Third, empirical justice research and research on attitudes in post-socialist countries lack information about how socialization has an effect on attitudes. So the book examines the effect of socialization on wage distribution fairness. The chapter also gives a brief an overview of the three post-socialist societies in focus (Hungary, East Germany, Czech Republic), and also describes the reasons the data from the International Social Justice Project were chosen for the empirical analysis. The chapter finishes with an overview of the chapters of the book.
