Explaining Preferences for Active Labour Market Policies: The Effects of Labour Market Risk, Socio-Economic Status and Ideology

In the last three decades, we witnessed an activation turn (Bonoli 2010). Since the success of new policies depends on public support, it is surprising that little is known about whether and what types of active labour market policies (ALMPs) citizens endorse. In this article, I complement the literature by analysing public attitudes towards three ALMP models. I analyse the support for the liberal (sanctions), human capital (training) and employment-related (public job creation) activation models. I test how labour market risk, socio-economic status, and ideological orientation interact and influence the support for particular ALMP models.

The results show that risk increases the likeliness to support unconditional policies, that a high socio-economic status moderates the effect of risk, and that unemployed individuals sympathising with the political right are more strongly against conditional measures than employed individuals with the same political preferences. The results suggest that for ALMPs to be accepted across social and ideological camps these should prioritise human capital investment.