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Recent research has established that employment risk shapes social policy preferences. However, risk is oftentimes conceptualized as an alternative measure of the socio-economic status. [The authors] show that employment risk and socio-economic status are distinct, cross-cutting determinants of social policy preferences. More specifically, [the authors] analyze the policy preferences of high-skilled labor market outsiders as a cross-pressured group. [The authors] first establish that labor market vulnerability has spread well into the more highly educated segments of the population. [The authors] then show that the effect of labor market vulnerability on social policy preferences even increases with higher educational attainment.

[The authors] conclude that that labor market risk and educational status are not interchangeable and that the high skilled are particularly sensitive to the experience of labor market risk. Thereby, [the] findings point to a potential cross-class alliance between more highly and lower skilled vulnerable individuals in support of a redistributive and activating welfare state. Thus, they have far-reaching implications for [the] understanding of both the politicization of insider/outsider divides and the politics of welfare support.

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