Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Public Choice
Published in: Public Choice 3-4/2016

10-03-2016

Public–private political cleavage: what happens after retirement?

Authors: Jørn Rattsø, Rune J. Sørensen

Published in: Public Choice | Issue 3-4/2016

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

Political preferences of public employees differ from those of workers in the private sector. The former are more likely to vote for left-wing parties and orient themselves ideologically towards the left. This political cleavage can be understood as the result of occupational incentives, or alternatively, as ideological self-selection whereby individuals favoring government solutions seek employment in the public sector. We test the selection hypothesis by estimating the effects of public versus private occupational sector on political preferences before and after retirement. The data are from the Norwegian Election Surveys and cover nine national elections between 1977 and 2009. The research design addresses a series of cross-sectional data and the key challenge of endogenous retirement is handled with instrumental variables. Party choice, ideological orientation, and public spending preferences are shown to change following retirement, and former private and public employees converge. The results reject selection based on ‘hard-wired’ political preferences.
previous article Interjurisdictional competition and the Married Women’s Property Acts
next article Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
In Norway, this sectoral division of party preferences has been shown to be important and is understood in the context of the welfare state (Bjørklund 1999, p. 293).
 
2
More recent studies find support for the hypothesis that a desire to serve the public is one reason why young people want a government job. For example, Cowley (2013) apply the world values survey and find that public sector workers frequently have higher intrinsic motivation compared to workers in the private sector. Dur and Zoutenbier (2013) employ a German, individual-level survey panel dataset. They observe that public sector employees are more altruistic than are employees in the private sector at the start of their careers, and the differences persist as long as they are working.
 
3
The data used in the analysis are from the Norwegian Election Studies 1965–2009. Data are anonymized and sourced from Norwegian Social Data Services (NSD). The Norwegian Institute of Social Research (ISF) was responsible for the original study, and Statistics Norway (SSB) collected the data. Neither ISF, SSB, nor NSD are responsible for the analyses or interpretations presented here.
 
5
In Norwegian:”Betrakter du deg hovedsakelig som 1) yrkesaktiv, 2) student eller skoleelev, 3) alderspensjonist, førtidspensjonist eller uførepensjonist, 4) hjemmearbeidende, 5) arbeidsledig, 6) vernepliktig, 7) annet, 8) vil ikke svare, 9) vet ikke.”
 
6
In Norwegian: Hvis yrkesaktiv: “De følgende spørsmålene gjelder ditt hovedyrke. Er den virksomheten du arbeider i, et personlig eid firma, et aksjeselskap, en organisasjon, kommunal, fylkeskommunal eller statlig virksomhet?” Hvis tidligere yrkesaktiv: “Var den virksomheten du arbeidet i, et personlig eid firma, et aksjeselskap, en organisasjon, kommunal, fylkeskommunal eller statlig virksomhet?”
 
7
The intercept α 0 represents a female retiree who formerly worked in the public sector. She has compulsory education only and no spouse; and it represents the preferences of the oldest group observed in the last election (2009).
 
8
This ‘political gender gap,’ it has been suggested, is also explained by higher divorce rates, leading to a reduction in women’s relative incomes (Edlund and Pande 2002).
 
9
Everyone who has lived in Norway for at least 40 years after the age of 16 is entitled to a retirement pension from 67 years of age. With no taxable income, the pension will be at a minimum level. New rules for retirement pensions were introduced from January 2011. These rules do not impinge on the current analysis.
 
10
In the public sector, some occupations have lower age limits. The major groups are nurses/auxiliary nurses (65 years of age), police and firemen (62 years of age) and military personnel (60 years of age). The Election Surveys have a detailed coding of occupation. The first-stage results regression results rely on retirement age limits and age limits of 67 and 70 years only. These results were not sensitive to including the occupation-specific age limits.
 
11
The Election Surveys do not include information that allows us to identify whether the private-sector respondents worked in a company that were part of the early retirement program.
 
Literature
Bennett, J. T., & Orzechowski, W. P. (1983). The voting behavior of bureaucrats: some empirical evidence. Public Choice, 41, 271–283.CrossRef
Bjørklund, T. (1999). Public versus private sector, a new division in voting behavior. In H. M. Narud & T. Aalberg (Eds.), Challenges to representative democracy: Parties, Voters, and public opinion. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.
Blais, A., Blake, D. E., & Dion, S. (1990). The public/private cleavage in North America: The political behavior and attitudes of public sector employees. Comparative Political Studies, 23, 381–403.CrossRef
Blais, A., Blake, D. E., & Dion, S. (1991). The voting behavior of bureaucrats’. In A. Blais & S. Dion (Eds.), The budget-maximizing bureaucrat: Appraisal and evidence. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Brewer, G. (2003). Building social capital: Civic attitudes and the behavior of public servants. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13, 5–26.CrossRef
Bush, W., & Denzau, A. (1977). The voting behavior of bureaucrats and public sector growth. In T. Borcherding (Ed.), Budgets and bureaucrats. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cowley, E. & S. Smith (2013). Motivation and mission in the public sector: evidence from the World Values Survey. Working Paper No. 13/299, Centre for Market and Public Organization, University of Bristol.
Downs, A. (1967). Inside bureaucracy. New York: Little and Brown.
Dur, R. & Zoutenbier, R. (2013). Intrinsic motivations of public sector employees: evidence from Germany. CESifo Working Paper No. 4276, Center for Economic Studies & Ifo Institute.
Edlund, L., & Pande, R. (2002). Why have women become left-wing? The political gender gap and the decline of marriage. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 917–961.CrossRef
Folke, O. J. Fiva & R.J. Sørensen, R.J. (2012). Political representation and fiscal policy: A causal or casual relationship? Working Paper, BI Norwegian School of Business.
Garand, J. C., Parkhurst, C. T., & Seoud, R. J. (1991). Bureaucrats, policy attitudes and political behavior: extension of the bureau voting model of government growth. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 1, 177–212.
Hernaes, E., Markussen, S., Piggott, J., & Vestad, O. (2013). Does retirement age impact mortality? Journal of Health Economics, 32, 586–598.CrossRef
Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2000). The developmental theory of the gender gap: Women’s and men’s voting behavior in global perspective. International Political Science Review, 21(4), 441–463.CrossRef
Jensen, J. L., Sum, P. E., & Flynn, D. T. (2009). Political orientation and behavior of public employees: A cross-national comparison. Journal of Public Administration Research and Policy, 19, 709–730.
Knutsen, O. (2001). Social class, sector employment and gender as party cleavages in the Scandinavian countries: A comparative longitudinal study, 1970–95’. Scandinavian Political Studies, 24, 311–359.CrossRef
Knutsen, O. (2005). The impact of sector employment on party choice. A comparative study of 8 West European countries. European Journal of Political Research, 44, 593–621.CrossRef
Lewis, G. B., & Frank, S. A. (2002). Who wants to work for the government? Public Administration Review, 62, 395–404.CrossRef
Lott, J. R, Jr, & Kenny, L. W. (1999). Did women’s suffrage change the size and scope of government? Journal of Political Economy, 107(6), 1163–1198.CrossRef
Niskanen, W. (1971). Bureaucracy and representative government. Chicago: Aldine Atherton.
Norrander, B., & Wilcox, C. (2008). The gender gap in ideology. Political Behavior, 30, 503–523.CrossRef
Otterbekk, S. R., L. Rose & J. Saglie (2010). Lokalvalgundersøkelsene (Local election study) 1995–2007, Dokumentasjonsrapport, ISF 2010:008, Institutt for samfunnsforskning.
Perry, J. L., Hondeghem, A., & Wise, L. R. (2010). Revisiting the motivational basis of public service: Twenty years of research and an agenda for the future. Public Administration Review, 70, 681–690.CrossRef
Rattsø, J., & Sørensen, R. J. (2004). Public employees as swing voters: Empirical evidence on opposition to public sector reform. Public Choice, 119, 281–310.CrossRef
Rattsø, J., & Sørensen, R. J. (2010). Grey power and public budgets. Family altruism helps children, but not the elderly. European Journal of Political Economy, 26, 222–234.CrossRef
Tepe, M. (2012). The public/private sector cleavage revisited: The impact of government employment on political attitudes and behavior in 11 West European countries. Public Administration, 90, 230–261.CrossRef
Vandenabeele, W. (2008). Government calling: Public service motivation as an element in selecting government as an employer of choice. Public Administration, 86, 1089–1105.
Metadata
Title
Public–private political cleavage: what happens after retirement?
Authors
Jørn Rattsø
Rune J. Sørensen
Publication date
10-03-2016
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Public Choice / Issue 3-4/2016
Print ISSN: 0048-5829
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7101
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-016-0324-9

Other articles of this Issue 3-4/2016

Public Choice 3-4/2016 Go to the issue

OriginalPaper

Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government

OriginalPaper

Interjurisdictional competition and the Married Women’s Property Acts

OriginalPaper

Intra-party diversity and ministerial selection in coalition governments

OriginalPaper

Clean or dirty energy: evidence of corruption in the renewable energy sector

OriginalPaper

In memoriam: R. Morris Coats, a second wave public choice scholar in camouflage