The United States was not the country in which people saw the largest gap between CEO and worker as ideal. The identity of that country might come as a surprise.

It was not Germany or Japan or France. It was Australia. We thought the ideal ratio of CEO pay to worker pay would be 8.3.

Not only did Australians approve of the largest gap between CEO and worker, we did so by a fair margin. Here, in order, are the countries seeing the largest pay gaps as ideal:

The “gap” between Australia at 8.3 and the second place-getter – the US – is 1.6. This is more than twice the “gap” (0.7) between the US and fifth-placed Japan.

By a significant margin Australians are, it seems, most accepting of a large pay gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. This is certainly very different from the image of Australia as a highly egalitarian country.

In The Lucky Country (published in 1964), Donald Horne described Australia as “the most egalitarian of countries” where “most people earn within a few pounds of the average”. Although Horne acknowledged there were still some forms of inequality, he expressed the belief these would fade with time. For Horne, Australia was above all a place that valued egalitarianism.

What’s become of our fabled egalitarianism?

Now, 50 years later, we are the country (at least of those surveyed) most accepting of big differences in pay between those at the bottom and those at the top. What has happened? Is it possible that in the last half-century we have in our values gone from being “the most egalitarian of countries” to the least, or one of the least, egalitarian?A few possible answers to these questions might be considered

So it remains unclear why Australians are accepting of such large pay differences between those at the top and the rest. Is it possible we just no longer believe in the fair go? Let alone know the reality of those differences and how incorrect those beliefs are.