Does the effect of financial insecurity and insecurity at work on populist attitudes differ between working-class and middle-class voters?

An increasing number of studies suggest that populism's appeal is not limited to the social segments with the highest levels of deprivation and affects the middle class as much (Antonucci et al., 2017; Kurer, 2020; Derndorfer, 2024). The declining conditions of working lives (Antonucci et al., 2019) and their increasing financial insecurity (Zhirnov et al., 2024) have been theorised to affect the populist tendencies of voters from across economic segments. Prior research shows that both the working class – the traditional constituency of social democratic parties – and the middle class – the traditional constituency of centre-right parties – have contributed votes to populist parties, however it is not clear whether the pull of populist parties among these socio-economic echelons was qualitatively and quantitatively different. Indeed, we should expect some differences emanating from their place in the social hierarchies, their interactions with the welfare state, and their political legacies. The working class and the middle class have traditionally been located in distinct segments of the political spectrum and have been core constituencies of different families of political parties. Yet, the existing research treats these segments of the electorate all at once and has not clarified the roles of different facets of insecurity in pushing voters from different socio-economic echelons toward populism. In this project, we compare the determinants of the economic policy attitudes and populist attitudes (as defined by the ideational approach to populism), as well as the pull from their traditional parties, among the working class and the middle class. We examine the collective profiles of the supporters of populist parties and established parties to see what is likely to make one populist rather than social-democratic or center-right based on their reported class, financial and work-related insecurity. To clarify the role of work conditions and financial insecurity, we use a cross-national survey dataset containing self-reported class, work-related insecurity, financial insecurity, a battery of questions about economic policies and a battery of questions about the three facets of populist attitudes (CastanhoSilva et al. 2020) and vote intentions. The dataset includes a large sample of respondents in 10 European countries. Our preliminary results confirm that financial insecurity, as well as dissatisfaction with the terms of one’s contract, have consistent positive effects on populist attitudes both among the working class and the middle class. This regularity does not seem to differ between working-class and middle-class voters – financial insecurity seems to push both groups of voters to support populist ideas and vote for populists equally. We do not find evidence that those with higher financial insecurity are economically more left-leaning, however, the working conditions do seem to matter for one’s economic policies. Those who are less satisfied with the conditions at work are more likely to be economically left-leaning, and so are the working class members in general. Interestingly, the lack of autonomy at work pushes one further to the right. Working under time pressure pushes the middle-class members, but not the working class, further to the right.