Dualism and support for the welfare state

Abstract

This article investigates the determinants of citizens' preferences for the size of the welfare state. Previous studies have shown that individuals in lower socioeconomic positions express stronger support for welfare state expansion. We argue that this support declines in dual labor markets (those in which there is a significant portion of the labor force not enjoying the working conditions of standard workers) because welfare state intervention is less redistributive as social protection policies tend to benefit the well-protected sectors of the labor force. As a result, the relationship between the socioeconomic attributes of individuals and their views of the welfare state is conditional on the structure of the labor market. We use evidence from the European Social Survey to substantiate empirically this claim and find that in dual labor markets economically disadvantaged groups are less willing to expand the welfare state, and that the mechanism underlying this finding indeed appears to be the less redistributive nature of welfare state intervention in these contexts.