The Perils of Privilege

• In Event: Economic Insecurity, Policy Preferences, and Voting Behavior

Abstract

We explore an under-examined source of the populist backlash to globalization: discriminatory hiring practices in the manufacturing sector. Consistent with the theory of dual labor markets and the efficiency-wage hypothesis, a sizeable manufacturing wage premium existed in the second half of the twentieth century. We conjecture that rationing of jobs into the manufacturing sector was done on the basis of race, gender, and national origin in a way that favored white males. If this was the case, then white males ought to have had a smaller college wage premium than other groups and, therefore, would have had reasons to invest less in their own human capital development than members of other groups. Consequently, white males were relatively ill-equipped to respond when import competition and automation led to a decline in the demand for industrial workers. Consequently, less-educated white males found nationalist, sexist, racist, xenophobic, and protectionist explanations for their having been "left-behind" compelling. As a result, they were more likely to vote for candidates emphasizing such narratives. We use both individual and aggregate data at the state, county, and commuting-zone levels to examine occupational, educational, attitudinal, and electoral trends to evaluate a number of hypotheses derived from our argument.

Authors

• William Roberts Clark, Texas A&M University

• Pablo Martin Pinto, University Houston

• Keigo Tanabe, Texas A&M University