Politics navigating macroeconomic transformations: labor migration and automation in Western Europe
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Abstract
Structural transformation in the labor market has double-edged implications. Increased usage of migrant workers may ‘grease the wheel’ of economic growth but degrade wages and working conditions. Labor-saving technology may increase efficiency but create a fear of massive job loss or deepened inequality. The duality gives rise to two distinctive political preferences. People may conceive of the change as threatening their economic security, which leads to advocating for restricting immigration or automation. In contrast, a positive vision of the transformation may lead to support for advancing the change—a notion that has received much less scholarly attention.
Then, under what conditions do people lean toward restricting or accelerating the structural transformation? My dissertation project explores how people navigate the double-edged consequences of labor migration and automation. Focusing on experiences in Western Europe, I shed light on three findings. First, as risks of job-displacement increase, natives are
more likely to agree that immigrants should be excluded from the welfare system. Thus, economic insecurity makes people see immigration as a ‘threat’ rather than a ‘contributor’ to the welfare system. Second, while subjective concerns about technology-driven change predict support for regulating the usage of robots in the economy, people approve of pushing automation forward if they see a potential for its benefits to be shared. It suggests that society-wise distributive implications, rather than individualized economic risks in the labor market, can affect political preferences. Third, the case study shows that the capacity of labor unions to countervail employers’ reliance on using migrant workers and coordinative inter-business relationships influence how countries accommodate automation. It highlights the role of institutional arrangement and political interaction between organized interests in defining the outcome.
I argue that navigating fears and hopes of structural changes in the labor market depend on politics balancing ‘who gets what’ from the double-edged transformations. People may advocate chauvinistic ideas when economically vulnerable. Still, the public is willing to actively accommodate the change when they see a positive vision of sharing gains. By exploring how people weigh up the gains and losses of the changes, my study provides insight for steering economic transitions without marginalizing vulnerable groups.
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Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International