Theories focused on occupational risk and skill specificity suggest that individuals can favour social policies irrespective of their current income if they feel their future economic situation is at risk. While in cross-sectional studies, a relationship has been found between these concepts and support for the welfare state and redistribution, the exact underlying behavioural mechanisms remain unclear. We propose to bridge this gap by focusing on the relationship between the objective and subjective measures of risk using cross-sectional and longitudinal data. In particular, we focus on individuals’ assessment of insecurity on the labour market and their relation to objective measures of job loss insecurity (occupational risk) and of ability to find another job (skill specificity). The results show that the link between objective and subjective levels of risk is more complex than implied in prevalent models, which has implications for the understanding of determinants of individual preferences and macro outcomes.
