Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization and the rise in support for leaving the European Union

• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Stephen Drinkwater
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12348

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization

and the rise in support for leaving the European

Union

Stephen Drinkwater

Roehampton Business School, University

of Roehampton, London, UK

Correspondence

Stephen Drinkwater, Roehampton

Business School, University of

Roehampton, London SW15 5SL, UK.

Email: stephen.drinkwater@roehampton.

ac.uk

Funding information

Economic and Social Research Council,

Grant/Award Number: ES/S012345/1

Abstract

This paper focuses on the changing relationship

between attitudes towards European Union

(EU) membership and workers affected by globaliza-

tion and technological advances in the lead-up to the

UK's EU referendum in 2016. It is found that workers

employed in middling occupations, where both relative

wages and employment have fallen, were significantly

more likely than workers in high-paying occupations to

indicate that the UK's long-term policy should be to

leave the EU. This view was particularly noticeable

amongst males with middling occupations in the post-

recessionary period between 2012 and 2015 and had

increased significantly relative to the mainly pre-

recessionary period between 2004 and 2008.

1|INTRODUCTION

The Brexit vote of June 2016 marked the culmination in the rise of negative attitudes towards

membership of the European Union (EU) amongst voters in the United Kingdom (UK).

Although the consequences of the decision to leave the EU are still somewhat uncertain, it is

predicted to have an adverse effect on the UK economy (Sampson, 2017), with early indications

of this having been borne out given a range of restrictions to immediate post-Brexit trade for

the UK (De Lyon & Dhingra, 2021). Brexit is also expected to have a significant impact on vari-

ous aspects of the UK labour market, with Teague and Donaghey (2018) considering the

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12348

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2021 The Author. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ind. Relat. 2021;52:569–588.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 569

implications of leaving the EU on freedom of movement, employment rights, trade unions and

employment policy. Woolfson (2017) focuses specifically on the prospects for labour standards

in a post-Brexit UK. This paper examines how views regarding the UK's membership of the EU

evolved amongst different groups of workers across two time periods leading up to the EU refer-

endum. Particular attention is directed towards examining whether support for leaving the EU

was more intense amongst those workers who faced the greatest exposure to the twin effects of

globalization and technological change. Fetzer (2019) argues that these labour market develop-

ments helped to plant the seeds for the rise in support for right wing parties with strong

Euroskeptic elements, especially the UK Independence Party (UKIP), that particularly emerged

in traditional working-class areas in the North of England in the post-recession phase leading

up to the EU referendum. In particular, he shows that the growing reliance on and exposure of

low-skilled individuals to the welfare state was a key contributing factor in the build-up of leave

sentiments and support for populist parties.

Specifically in relation to the impact that globalization had on Brexit, Colantone and

Stanig (2018) find that the rise in Chinese imports directly increased the leave vote in those

areas in which competition from China was greatest. Similarly, with regard to the

United States (US), Autor et al. (2020) report that there was a growth in both strong-left and

strong-right political views in electoral districts that were most exposed to import competi-

tion from China, whilst Rodrik (2021) examines the channels through which globalization

can stimulate populism, focusing particularly on the impact of trade, financial globalization

and immigration. Levi et al. (2021) analyse the role that two reforms introduced in

New Zealand: the liberalization of trade, which negatively affected certain industries, and the

development of a skilled migration system played in the increased support for the

New Zealand first political party. Bossert et al. (2019) find that increased levels of economic

insecurity in Germany, the UK and US were associated with greater political participation

and the rise in support for right-wing parties. Caselli et al. (2021) show that migration flows,

foreign competition and the diffusion of robots were all positively associated with the

increase in votes captured by far right parties in Italy. Anelli et al. (2019) also find that

increased exposure to robot adoption led to greater support for nationalist and radical right

parties in 14 Western European countries.

Although some existing studies on the causes of Brexit have included controls for occu-

pation, job or work type in their regression models (Alabrese et al., 2019; Fox, 2021;

Goodwin & Milazzo, 2017), this has not been a key focus of the empirical literature on the

determinants of the leave vote, despite the fact that those in employment make up over

half of eligible voters.

1

To address this gap, as well as focusing on the evolution of the

leave vote, this paper analyses data from the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) over

two periods leading up to the 2016 EU referendum to examine how increased support for

leaving the EU varied between different groups of workers. Specific attention is directed

towards those occupational sectors that have been most affected by globalization and

technological change.

This paper is structured in the following manner. The next section contains a brief review of

the literatures on job polarization and on the impact of job types and occupations on the Brexit

vote. This is followed by discussion of the data, from the BSAS, that are used in the empirical

analysis and then by a description of the regression models that are estimated. The penultimate

section contains a discussion of the regression results, and the paper is completed with some

concluding comments.

570 DRINKWATER