Labor market dualization and insider–outsider divides: why this new conflict matters

Hanna Schwander explains there are two key frames in understanding labour market dualization along "insider-outsider lines", though one is more useful.

"Labour market status" approaches oversimplify, pitting permanent employees against the unemployed, whilst "prospective risk exposure" categorises individuals based on risk to vulnerable employment, capturing the complexity and fluidity of "outsiderness".

Schwander suggests that, either way, the impact of employment stability and instability increases voter preferences among insiders for job security, taxes and higher wages. For outsiders, there is preference for benefits, job creation, and redistribution.

Generally, the insiders have voted right, whilst the outsiders left. As labour market shifts have set in across more of society, class strata associated with higher political participation are perceiving a risk of "outsiderness", therefore swinging voting preferences to the inside-favouring right to shore up their position.

Schwander concludes that "the politicization of insider-outsider conflicts is likely to accelerate" with the continuing precariarization of the workforce across class divides.