Research: Occupational hazard and political segregation in the US labor market
Abstract The tendency for liberals and conservatives to cluster in different occupations significantly impacts society, yet the factors that contribute to this type of segregation remain incompletely understood. Bridging research from cultural and cognitive psychology, I develop a theory describing how occupational environments can shape people’s political ideologies, thereby contributing to political segregation in the labor market. Specifically, I argue that the more hazardous an occupation is, the more likely it is to have a higher concentration of conservative workers because dangerous work environments can socialize people to prefer order and stability. Using data from the Occupation Information Network, General Social Survey, and Bureau of Labor Statistics, I find that hazardous occupations tend to have higher concentrations of conservative workers, even after controlling for several alternative explanations. Further, using longitudinal data from the Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study, I find that individuals employed in hazardous occupations tended to become more conservative over time relative to their peers in safer occupations. These findings suggest that liberals and conservatives may not only be sorting into different occupations; rather, certain occupational environments may contribute to political segregation in the labor market by shaping workers’ political views.