This paper studies the association between the risk of automation and vote choice in 11 West European countries. We extend upon labour economics literature on the effects of automation on the labour market by focusing on the political consequences of automation. We also build on existing work relating labour market risks to support for radical right parties. We argue that automation threat is most likely to increase support for radical right parties. We demonstrate that those more inclined to vote for the radical right rather than the average voters are those who are both threatened by automation and are still “just about managing” economically. They are more receptive to the narrative of the radical right, which simultaneously highlights the risk, and proposes protection. Using cross-sectional individual level data drawn from the European Social Survey (rounds 6, 7 and 8), we find that individuals who perceive themselves as “coping on present income” are significantly more likely to vote for radical right parties as risk of automation increases. They are also less likely to vote for major right parties.
In this paper, we study the relationship between occupational vulnerability and attitudes toward immigration in Western Europe. We measure occupational vulnerability as the risk of unemployment due to routine-biased technological change and offshoring of jobs to other countries. Previous empirical studies in political economy have shown that individuals' policy preferences echo their economic risks and prospects. Workers in low routine occupations are most worried about their job market prospects, most likely to demand social protection and least likely to support free trade. We find that attitudes toward immigration become considerably more negative as occupational task routineness increases. We do not find a similar association between occupational offshorability and immigration attitudes. Direct exposure to global competition is not associated with increased worries about immigration. However, offshorability seems to be associated with the polarization of attitudes toward immigration between routine and nonroutine workers.
This paper examines institutional change in father-specific leave -a centre-piece of the EU's work-life balance directive (WLBD) -from the perspective of gradual institutional change. The WLBD, a highly contentious directive, represents a litmus test for the possible impact of the European pillar of social rights (EPSR), on welfare state institutions, which are responsible for the organisation, financing and delivery of social rights in member states. The analysis comprises in-depth case studies in Denmark, Germany, France and Poland, with different combinations of family and parental leave policies prior to the WLBD. The findings reveal that the EU's directive is leading to convergence in paternity leave, but to divergence in parental leave. Our study is important because it shows that even if EU directives in social policy in principle can lead to upwards social convergence across the EU, when they are relatively weak in terms of precise constraint, for instance, for the level of remuneration for leave, this leads to differentiated
How does unemployment risk affect workers’ support for demanding active labour market policies (ALMPs)? There may be a substantial number of workers who experience unemployment risk from labour market disruptions. Yet, we know less about its impact on demanding ALMP support than the impact of unemployment status. Here, I explore the impact of unemployment risk through automation. Automation-threatened workers’ support for demanding ALMPs may be influenced by two opposing considerations that are linked to their potential reliance on welfare. First, they may worry about barriers to welfare access. Second, they may worry about welfare competition, especially under austerity. Their support for demanding ALMPs would hence depend on which consideration they find to be most salient. Based on the European Social Survey (2016) data on West European countries, I find that automation-threatened workers significantly support such policies. This may indicate that they find welfare competition concerns more salient than welfare access ones.
We distinguish between the experience and expectation of subjective status decline in relation to electoral behaviour. Studies often link support for radical parties, especially radical right ones, to voters’ experience of status decline. A few other studies argue that voters’ expectation of status decline also triggers radical right support. Without precise measures of both perceptions, it has been difficult to distinguish which (or both) is most relevant for radical right support in Western Europe and the USA. Using survey data from 2018 (n = 4,076) and 2020 (n = 2,106) in Finland, we could precisely measure and distinguish between voters’ experience and expectation of status decline. Descriptively, voters who have experienced status decline have low income, whereas voters who expect status decline have (lower)middle income. Using multivariate analyses, we find that voters who expect status decline consistently prefer radical right parties more than voters who expect status improvement. However, there is no robust evidence of radical right support among voters who have experienced status decline. These findings suggest that the expectation, not experience, of status decline drives radical right support. If these expectations trigger radical right support in Nordic welfare states, they may be even more pertinent in less comprehensive welfare states.
I examine how different employment contracts moderate the impact of welfare chauvinist preferences on radical right support. Welfare chauvinism has become a cornerstone of radical right’s nativist electoral programme. Yet, there are mixed findings on how welfare chauvinist preferences affect radical right support. While some studies find a positive association, others find little correlation. One reason for such ambiguity is: voters who support welfare chauvinism may prioritise other competing issue preferences. They may thus vote for other parties, even if such parties do not offer welfare chauvinist programmes. From this perspective, the crucial question is: under what conditions do voters who support welfare chauvinism prefer the radical right? Among other reasons, I argue that they may do so when they experience economic risk from insecure employment contracts. Differences in employment protection legislation strictness for different employment contracts yield differences in employment security for these different contracts. Using cross-national data from the European Social Survey (Rounds 1 and 7), I find that employed workers, who support welfare chauvinism and have temporary contracts, vote most for radical right parties. I regard this finding as evidence that voters supporting welfare chauvinism prefer radical right parties under conditions of employment insecurity.
Automation has permeated workplaces and threatens labour in the production process. Concurrently, European governments have expanded workfare which imposes stringent conditions and sanctions on unemployed workers after the onset of austerity. We explore how automation risk affects workfare support. Recent research finds that most routine workers ‘survive’ in their routine jobs. Despite avoiding unemployment, routine workers may face the threat of status decline as automation erodes the value of routine work. They may respond by differentiating themselves from lower-ranked social groups such as unemployed workers. Such boundary drawing may manifest views that the unemployed are less deserving of welfare. We thus posit that routine workers may support workfare to assuage their fears of status decline. We further explore if worsening economic hardship, proxied as rising unemployment rates over time, increases their support for workfare. We conducted pooled and multilevel analyses using data from the European Social Survey. We find that routine workers significantly support workfare. We also find that routine workers support workfare when economic hardship worsens, but oppose it when conditions ameliorate. Findings suggest that status threat is an important channel by which automation risk may affect workfare support, but its impact depends on social context, hence yielding country-differences. Worsening economic hardship may exacerbate routine workers’ status decline fears, and intensify their harsh views against unemployed workers. Automation risk may thus have a greater impact on workfare support under such conditions. Policymakers can use these findings to assess how workfare may be publicly received and under various economic conditions.
Policy access biases worry social policy scholars because they generate Matthew effects that exacerbate socioeconomic divides. Yet, access biases in many social investment policies, like training during unemployment, remain under-researched. Such access biases may be detrimental to a critical objective of social investment: to improve and uplift workers with precarious economic prospects. We focus here on access bias in training provided by public employment services against lower-educated workers. They are vulnerable to unemployment and fractured employment and should thus be targeted for training. While there is burgeoning attention on access biases in training against disadvantaged youths and non-citizens, fewer studies have focused on similar access bias against lower-educated workers. We highlight that access bias against such workers may stem from their lower willingness and demand for training, as well as policy design, informal eligibility criteria and caseworkers’ creaming practices. We suggest, however, that greater availability of training opportunities may ease this access bias against lower-educated workers. Using the Finnish Income Distribution survey data (2007–2012), we find evidence of training access bias: primary-educated workers are significantly less likely to participate in training than upper secondary and vocationally educated workers. Concurrently, our results show that availability of training is not significantly associated with the extent of training access bias against primary-educated workers. With a Nordic welfare model that prioritizes training to remedy labour market vulnerability and stresses that access to benefits and services is based on need, Finland represents a least likely case to find such access bias in training. We therefore consider these results worrying: if it is found here, it may be prevalent in countries with other welfare models.
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