Job Loss Fears and (Extreme) Party Identification: First Evidence from Panel Data

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThere is a large body of literature analyzing the relationship between objective economic conditions and voting behavior, but there is very little evidence of how perceived economic insecurity impacts on political preferences. Using seventeen years of household panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examine whether job loss fears impact on individuals' party identification. Consistent with rational choice theory, we find strong and robust evidence that job loss fears foster affinity for parties at the far right-wing of the political spectrum. However, our empirical estimates do not suggest that job loss fears result in people withdrawing their support from political parties altogether.Keywords: Job insecurity, party identification, prospective voting, economic worries JEL Classification: J01, C23 * Geishecker: Georg-August University Göttingen, Department of Economics, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany (e-mail: Ingo.Geishecker@wiwi.uni-goettingen.de); Siedler: German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), Mohrenstraße 58, 10117 Berlin, Germany (e-mail: tsiedler@diw.de). We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

The impact of diabetes on labour market outcomes in Mexico: A panel data and biomarker analysis

“…Several other studies in economics have used this approach recently, e.g., Geishecker and Siedler (2011), Wunder and Riphahn (2014) and Boll et al (2016) Using the same methods, we also investigated the impact of diabetes on changes in the type of work for those already employed, finding no evidence that diabetes leads to changes in the type of work. These results are also available on request.…”

Financial Crisis, Creditor-Debtor Conflict, and Political Extremism

“…Local labor market shocks Local labor market shocks could increase job insecurity, induce wage freeze or wage cut and might result in job loss, which could influence the political preferences of people. For example Geishecker and Siedler (2011) documents that job loss fears could foster affinity for parties at the far right. Import competition from China increases job insecurity and affects political preferences (Autor et al, 2016;Colantone and Stanig, 2017;Dippel et al, 2015).…”

“…We complement these studies by exploiting a natural experiment and also by exploring the channels through which a crisis affect political preferences. Papers using survey data (Guiso et al, 2017;Geishecker and Siedler, 2011) measure how economic or job insecurity affect the popularity of populist and far-right parties. The Hungarian setting allows us to study the effect of a well-defined economic shock, which also helps us show that policies promoted by the far-right make these parties popular.…”

(When) Do Critical Life Events Push People to the Populist Radical Right? Support for the Swiss People’s Party Following Relationship Dissolution, Unemployment or a Health Crisis

“…The relationship between the event of unemployment and populist radical right voting has received more research attention. Many studies on the relationship between unemployment and populist radical right voting show that unemployment and job insecurity are associated with increased support for the populist radical right, both in cross-sectional (Corbetta and Colocca 2013) and longitudinal studies (Geishecker and Siedler 2011;Rink et al 2008). However, some studies have found no relationship (Schmitt-Beck et al 2006) or only for individuals with high levels of political interest (Kohler 2002).…”