Individual Experience of Labor Market Risks and Political Preferences: A Longitudinal Approach

The enduring welfare state popularity is assumed to be one of the main reasons why welfare states persist even in hard times. The literature proposes self-interest as the main motivation of individuals to support the welfare state. Consequently it is a common finding that, for example, exposure to labour market risks is related to labour market preferences. Previous findings relied mainly on cross sectional data and miss a dynamic, causal component – both theoretically and empirically. In this paper we investigate changes in individual attitudes using two waves of a Dutch panel survey for 2008 and 2013. This time span covers the period of economic crisis and allows the investigation of attitude change in times of economic hardship. We focus on attitudes towards unemployment benefits and test how increased individual labor market risks, i.e. experiences of unemployment or temporary employment, affect support for the welfare state.