Occupational Job Insecurities and Policy Preferences

• In Event: Poster Session: International Political Economy 2 & APCG (African Politics)
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: International Political Economy 2

Abstract

Many automation and communication technologies advances do not affect job security for entire industries, sectors, or skill levels but rather affect particular occupations within industries. For example, CoCounsel is an artificial intelligence designed to comb through case law and prepare legal arguments, and it primarily affects the job security of legal aids. As these technologies become increasingly specialized, it may not be the skill, industry, or sector of a worker that determines their job insecurity but rather the task makeup of their occupation.

As these job insecurities become more particularized, how does this affect worker's perceptions of job insecurity? How accurate are workers' perceptions of their occupational-level job insecurities? The existing scholarship is split. While some political economists find evidence that workers in more susceptible occupations will oppose the sources of job insecurity that threaten them, other scholars find evidence that workers misattribute the source of their job insecurity. Namely, they find evidence that workers misattribute job insecurity caused by less familiar processes (automation and offshoring) and blame more familiar outgroups (migrant labor).

This project's theory can consolidate these findings. This theory examines how occupational-level job insecurities influence workers' policy preferences, contingent on workers' perceptions. This theory follows prospect theory. It expects workers' policy opinions towards migrant labor, offshoring, automation, and import penetration to be driven by loss aversion, with workers opposing the options they believe may threaten their wages and employment.


There are two types of workers within this theory: knowledgeable and unknowledgeable. A knowledgeable worker can attribute their job insecurities to their correct sources. Since not every occupation is at risk of replacement by automation, offshoring, migrant labor, or import penetration (e.g., a hair stylist cannot be offshored), a knowledgeable worker is expected to oppose the options that threaten them and oppose the options that do not less.

In contrast, this theory assumes that unknowledgeable workers do not know the source of their job insecurities but rather receive a noisy signal of threat. For example, they may witness layoffs in similar occupations. Under this noisy signal, workers may believe their job is insecure but cannot attribute it to a particular source. In that instance, workers are expected to oppose any option that could threaten their employment and should have greater opposition to all options. An unknowledgeable worker in this theory facing an offshoring risk would oppose offshoring (aligning with the expectations of political economists) and oppose migration, automation, and import penetration (aligning with the expectations of misattribution scholars).

An original experiment manipulating occupational-level job insecurity will be fielded in February to test this theory. Additionally, a nationally representative survey will be conducted in April to collect detailed occupational data on respondents and their perceptions of job insecurity and policy preferences in practice. Extant survey data is ill-fitted to test this theory, as political science surveys often lack detailed questions on workers' occupations or collect their policy opinions on offshoring or automation. A preliminary analysis of this theory was tested using the European Social Survey and found partial support for the unknowledgeable workers' expectations. However, an inability to measure workers' perceptions of job insecurity directly leaves extant survey data unable to completely or convincingly test the derivations of this theory.

Author

• Duncan Kennedy Espenshade, Texas A&M University