Income shocks, political support and voting behaviour

Upward, Richard; Wright, Peter W.

Abstract

We provide new evidence on the effects of economic shocks on political support, voting behaviour and political opinions over the last 25 years in the UK. We exploit a sudden, large and long-lasting shock in the form of job loss and trace out its impact on individual political outcomes for up to 10 years after the event. The availability of detailed information on individuals before and after the job loss event allows us to reweight a comparison group to closely mimic the job losers in terms of their observable characteristics, pre-existing political support and voting behaviour. We find consistent and long-lasting effects on support and votes for the incumbent party, and shorter-lived effects on political engagement. We find limited impact on the support for fringe or populist parties. In the context of Brexit, opposition to the EU was much higher amongst those who lost their jobs, but this was largely due to pre-existing differences which were not exacerbated by the job loss event itself.

Citation

Upward, R., & Wright, P. W. (2024). Income shocks, political support and voting behaviour. Journal of Public Economics, 239, Article 105253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105253

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 9, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Oct 30, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024-11
• Deposit Date: Oct 10, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 31, 2026
• Journal: Journal of Public Economics
• Print ISSN: 0047-2727
• Electronic ISSN: 0047-2727
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 239
• Article Number: 105253
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105253
• Keywords: job loss, voting, political support
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/40560780
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-public-economics
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Income shocks, political support and voting behaviour; Journal Title: Journal of Public Economics; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105253; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.