High-skilled outsiders?: labor market vulnerability, education and welfare state preferences

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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