The Political Consequences of Labor Market Dualization

An important body of literature has identified a potential political conflict between insiders, those with the secure jobs, and outsiders, those without. Using the European Social Science survey, I assess the usefulness of the insider/outsider model for developing testable propositions on the political consequences of labor market segmentation. As hypothesized by the literature, I find an opposition between insiders and outsiders on redistributive policies favorable to outsiders. However, this does not extend in a meaningful way to other policy preferences relating to employment protection regulation or to income redistribution more generally. More generally, it is the internal diversity of outsiders that stands out with outsiders living with insiders behaving mostly like their partner. Overall, a focus on the labor market status as defined by the insider/outsider model does not give us much additional information on the determinants of political preferences and behavior: its independent effect is small and it fails to provide new insights on the well-know correlations between gender, age or income and political behavior. If labor market dualization matters, it is for voter turnout: in half of the countries, I find an independent negative impact of labor market status on turnout, pointing to the possible relation between one’s stable inclusion in a workplace and one’s voting behavior. The political consequences of dualization might thus be more one of individual de-enfranchisement than the conflictual division of the workforce between secure and insecure workers.