Description

Intergenerational social mobility, political socialization, and support for the left under post-industrial realignment

This study investigates how class of origin and specific patterns of intergenerational social mobility impact left-wing party support among new and old core left-wing constituencies, in the context of post-industrial electoral realignment and occupational transformation. Many individuals originally from working-class backgrounds (traditional left constituencies) have a different (post-industrial) class location than their parents. We investigate the remaining legacy of political socialization in class of origin using panel data from the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. The results indicate enduring effects of production worker roots, that are weaker for younger generations and in more realigned contexts. We demonstrate that part of the contemporary middle-class left-wing support is a legacy of industrial class-party alignments. Moreover, we do not observe the development of such a legacy among new left-wing constituencies. Our findings imply that exclusively considering respondents’ destination class underestimates the relevance of political socialization in class of origin, thereby overestimating electoral realignment.

Speaker

Macarena Ares is a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral fellow at the Democracy, Elections and Citizenship research group, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She completed a PhD in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in 2017. Her research interests are in the study of class politics, social policy, electoral behaviour, political participation and public opinion.

*Joint work with Mathilde M. van Ditmars, Postdoctoral researcher at Universität Luzern.

Practical information

Languages: English
Organisers: Joint Research Centre