Political Ideology and Public Sector Work: Empirical Evidence on the Individual Attitudes towards Equality and Merit in Public Hiring

EasyChair Preprint no. 1140

Abstract

While some consider Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies a valid tool to increase the representativeness of the public workforce, critics claim that EEO policies undermine the merit principle. This study puts this debate to an empirical test. First, we test the role of political orientation and public sector employment in determining the support for active EEO policies in public hiring. Second, we manipulate the potential tension between EEO policies and merit-based hiring using a randomized survey experiment. We use data collected on about 400 students of public administration, 220 public administration employees, and 630 private employees in Germany. Empirical findings can be summarized in two points: First, a rightist political orientation increases opposition towards EEO policies, while public employment increases support. Second, highlighting a potential tension between merit recruitment and migrant representation in the public workforce in the treatment condition increases support for the merit principle among all groups of respondents. However, in particlar respondents with a rightist political orientation overemphasize the importance of the merit principle when a potential migrant underrepresentation is mentioned. These findings suggest that preferences for labor market equality in public hiring are highly politicized and vulnerable towards political manipulation.

Keyphrases: Equal Employment Opportunity policies, Merit-based hiring, political orientation, Public-Private Sector, survey experiment

@Booklet{EasyChair:1140,
  author = {Christine Prokop and Michael Jankowski and Markus Tepe},
  title = {Political Ideology and Public Sector Work: Empirical Evidence on the Individual Attitudes towards Equality and Merit in Public Hiring},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1140},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}