Increasing divides between labor market insiders and outsiders concern policy makers and
academic scholars alike. Although labor market vulnerability is often seen as a phenomenon
that affects the low-skilled segment of the labor market, this article demonstrates that dualization
and educational attainment are not collinear phenomena. Rather, labor market vulnerability
spreads well into highly educated segments of the population with striking implications
for the preference formation of both high- and low-skilled outsiders.
We have shown that high-skilled women experience an over-proportional risk of temporary
or involuntary part-time work, while the labor market vulnerability of highly educated
young labor market participants results mainly from temporary work. We also produced
clear evidence that labor market vulnerability is linked to an inferior labor market status
even for the highly educated. High-skilled outsiders experience lower job satisfaction and
income security than do high- skilled individuals with low labor market vulnerability.
Hence, atypical work among the high-skilled is not just an unproblematic, deliberate choice
they make. Labor market vulnerability leads both individuals with lower and higher education
levels to fear that they might easily be replaced and lowers their chances to improve their skills.
Our evidence suggests that labor market vulnerability is associated with stronger preferences for
redistribution and activation but lower support for social insurance. Regarding the joint effect of
labormarket risks and education, highly educated outsiders are cross-pressuredwhen it comes to
social policy preferences. Their high level of human capital would predispose the high-skilled to
oppose redistribution and activation and instead favor social insurance, while their labor market
vulnerability pushes their preferences in the opposite directions. Comparing the relative importance
of education and labor market vulnerability, we conclude that the effect of labor
market vulnerability on social policy preferences exceeds the one of education.
Our findings contribute to the literature on insider/outsider divides, comparative political
economy as well as social policy preferences and welfare support. First, our analysis underscores
the importance of distinguishing between different distributive principles of social
policy.We clearly need to study insider/outsider preferences with regard to specific distributive
policies, because different welfare policies affect them in distinct ways. Just as large welfare
states do not need to be redistributive welfare states at the macro-level (Esping-Andersen,
1990; Huber and Stephens, 2001), welfare state preferences on the individual level are not
to be equated with preferences for ‘more’ or ‘less’ welfare state (Moene and Wallerstein,
2003; Fernàndez-Albertos and Manzano, 2011) as distinct policies have different distributive
consequences for different social groups.
Second, the findings emphasize the importance of treating labor market vulnerability and
education levels as two separate dimensions in determining individuals’ labor market position.
254 S. Häusermann et al.
Most important, our article has important implications for the insider/outsider literature and
the study of welfare state support. High-skilled outsiders are a cross-pressured group: while
they possess a high earning potential, their labor market vulnerability prevents them from capitalizing
on this earning potential. Our analysis indicates that labor market vulnerability is
particularly relevant for explaining the preferences of precisely these individuals. For them,
the effect of labor market vulnerability prevails over the effect of the positive prospects of
being highly qualified.
Our findings therefore point to the potential of cross-class alliances between highly and
lower skilled vulnerable individuals in support of a redistributive and activating welfare
state. This has far-reaching implications for our understanding of both the politicization of
insider/outsider divides and the politics of welfare support. In contrast to low-skilled outsiders,
higher skilled outsiders are likely to be a politically informed and active group
(Häusermann and Schwander, 2012), which is why insider/outsider divides are more likely
to become politicized once higher skilled individuals are affected, too. In addition, besides enlarging
the pro-redistribution and pro-activation coalition, their preferences should weight
more strongly in the politics of welfare state reforms, given the stronger political mobilization
of more high-skilled groups. Yet further research needs to explore the conditions under which
such a cross-class alliance emerges at the macro-level and whether these social policy preferences
are translated into political processes. What this article provides is a micro-foundation of
potential dynamics in welfare politics, the realization of which depends on the organization
and mobiliza