How Perceived Distributive Effects Shape Labor Market Policy Support

The growth of the knowledge economy alters the risks and opportunities citizens experience in the labor market. Governments attempt to steer and support the adaptation of the workforce, enhance and spread opportunities, and mitigate the negative implications of these changes via skill-developing labor market policies, social insurance, or regulation. However, many studies document a discordance between the “subjective” policy demand that citizens express and their “objective” needs – think of routine workers threatened by automation who reject retraining and upskilling. Our study theorizes four mechanisms to explain such discordance: citizens’ subjective perception of the distributive effects of a reform, the relative policy priorities they wish the government to pursue, the aggregate societal effects they associate with a particular reform, or the cultural-symbolic benefits (or lack thereof) they derive from a policy in terms of social recognition and status for themselves and their social in-group. To test the relative importance of these mechanisms, we analyze novel data from an original survey in 9 European countries. We fielded a vignette experiment manipulating the distributive, societal and recognition effects of different policies, and we analyze how these treatments moderate the link between individual occupational risk and policy support. We complement the experimental design with open and closed observational questions on perceived policy effects. Our analyses generate insights into the economic and political effectiveness of policy design, and the implications of technological change for democratic support.