Are U.S. Professionals and Managers More Left Than Blue-Collar Workers? An Analysis of the General Social Survey, 1974 to 2018

Are U.S. Professionals and Managers More Left Than Blue-Collar Workers? An Analysis of the General Social Survey, 1974 to 2018. Steven Brint, Michaela Curran, Matthew C. Mahutga. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World January 6, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211068654

Abstract: Social science interest in professionals and managers as a left- and liberal-trending stratum has increased in recent years. Using General Social Survey data over a 44-year period, the authors examine 15 attitudes spanning social, economic, and political identity liberalism. On nearly all attitudes, professionals and managers have trended in a liberal direction, have liberalized more quickly than blue-collar workers, and are either as or more liberal than blue-collar workers. The authors find that the higher levels of education among professionals and managers, their tendency to adopt nonauthoritarian outlooks, and their lower propensity to identify with fundamentalist religion mediate their more liberal trends vis-à-vis blue-collar workers. Conversely, their higher relative incomes suppress the extent of their economic and criminal justice liberalism. The authors’ theorization links changes in the macro-economy to growing gaps in the composition of the two strata and the activities of politicians and parties to consolidate emerging political differences.

Keywords: professionals and managers, blue-collar workers, political attitudes, political realignment, political trends

Discussion

The left-liberal-trends thesis gains considerably more support in these analyses than it did in analyses conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. On social issues, PM are trending liberal more quickly on two of six issues and at the same rate on one. BC, who were far behind PM at the beginning of the period, are trending more liberal on the remaining three of the issues. PM are now more liberal than BC on three of six social issues, indistinguishable in their liberalism on two, and less liberal on one. On economic issues, PM are trending more liberal than BC on six of seven outcomes and are indistinguishable on one. In the most recent period, they are now more liberal in their level of support for economic liberalism in two cases, indistinguishable on three, and less liberal on only two. In the political identity liberalism domain, PM are trending more liberal than BC on both outcomes and are now more attached to the Democratic Party and more liberal in political ideology than BC. These results are largely robust to shifts in the definition of occupational groups, differences in political attitudes between whites and racial-ethnic minorities, and treatments of scale items as continuous rather than categorical.

This level of support for the left-liberal-trends thesis contrasts with the lesser accuracy of the divided-trends thesis. The latter accurately predicts the direction of change of the two strata on social liberalism issues but not the faster rates of change among PM. It fails to predict the direction of change on nearly all economic issues, as well as the rates of change between the two strata. It also fails to predict either the direction or rate of change in the political identity liberalism domain (see Table 1).

These findings are consequential for social science analyses of American politics. No previous studies have shown a dominant left and liberal trend in PM attitudes across a wide range of issues or such broadly consistent evidence of variation in PM and BC trends. We were able to detect these trends through the use of a longer time series, a larger number of items and scales, and better controlled analyses than social scientists have previously used. Our findings contrast not only with the prevailing view from the 1980s and 1990s but also with arguments that emphasize traditional lines of class division (Bartels 2008; Gelman et al. 2010), as well as those that emphasize trendless fluctuation in class politics (Manza, Hout, and Brooks 1995).

The mediators we propose also matter for explaining the attitude gaps between PM and BC. Differences in graduate education, nonauthoritarian values, nonfundamentalist religion, and income help explain observed attitude gaps between PM and BC in all three domains of liberalism. Nonauthoritarian values appear to be the most important compositional difference between PM and BC. Their indirect effect was significantly different from zero 31 of 45 times. The next most important was graduate degrees, which were significantly different from zero 25 of 45 times. In general, the mediating effects of nonauthoritarian values and graduate education are trending in a liberal direction, as evidenced by the positive trends on the graduate degree and nonauthoritarian values coefficients in Figure 2. Nonfundamentalist religion was the least consistent influence on liberal attitudes, as it was significant in 21 of 45 tests. Unlike the other gaps we have discussed, the gap between PM and BC in affiliation with nonfundamentalist religion is narrowing moderately rather than widening, suggesting the possibility that the politics of the two strata could become more similar in the future in so far as these identifications mediate the trends we have observed.

Although income was the third most important compositional factor (significantly different from zero 22 of 45 times), the sign was generally opposite from our expectation. Income showed the expected effects on three social issues, but it showed a conservatizing effect on most issues involving crime control, the power of business and labor, and economic redistribution. It was also not associated with higher levels of adoption of Democratic Party identification or with higher levels of support for government social spending. Income also appears to be trending in a conservative direction, as evidenced in the downward slopes for income in Figure 2. Thus, income generally has no effect or an increasingly conservatizing effect on the attitude gap between PM and BC. These results are consistent with the work of others who have found that higher incomes tend to increase conservatism (Bartels 2008; Hout and Greeley 2010; Tilly 1998). PM are becoming, and in many cases have already become, more liberal and left than BC despite the growing income gap between these two groups rather than because of this gap.

These findings on compositional influences are also consequential for social science analyses of American politics. As far as we know, no social scientists have shown the extent to which attitude trends in the two strata can be explained by macro-level changes that are mediated by changes in the composition of the two strata over time. A next step for researchers will be to explicate the portion of the gaps between PM and BC that cannot be accounted for by these compositional dynamics.