1 Explaining welfare state preferences in dualized societies

Explaining social policy preferences has become a key topic in comparative politics. Labor market risk affects these preferences, but does dualization generate preference divides between labor market insiders and outsiders? The literature fundamentally disagrees on this question, because of different assumptions regarding the relevant locus of preference formation: political economy scholars answer in the affirmative, since they focus on employment vulnerability and preferences of individuals, while authors adopting a more sociologist perspective argue that household effects obliterate insider-outsider divides. Using a new continuous measure of ‘outsiderness ’ and data from the European Social Survey, we show that labor market vulnerability explains social policy preferences, even if we control for the partner’s vulnerability. The household situation does matter, but its effect is limited: for most individuals ’ preference formation, their own labor market risk prevails over the effect of their partners ’ risk. More importantly even, the household effect is conditional on gender. Our findings have far-reaching implications for the politicization of insider-outsider divides