Political Parties and Non-Standard Employment: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain in Comparison

Although non-standard work has become a major research topic for scholars of labour markets, social policy and political economy, our knowledge of how political parties address the issue is extremely limited even at a descriptive level. This paper stems from one of the first systematic research efforts systematically studying party positions on the issue. We examine which parties address non-standard employment, how they frame it, and what policies they propose. To this end we analyse electoral manifestos of the two most recent elections in four states with a high share of non-standard work: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. We find that non-standard employment was a relevant political topic in the last ten years and that it is structured by the general socio-economic left-right dimension: parties of the left raise non-standard employment as a social problem, while parties of the right either welcome non-standard employment or try to de-emphasize its problematic implications. Small socialist parties or Green parties are particularly vocal about precarious employment. Our findings imply that non-standard work is becoming increasingly politicised. Better knowledge about the positions of collective actors is a crucial complement to micro-level studies of the political preferences of non-standard workers.