Replication Data for: The Microfoundations of Latin America’s Social Policy Coalitions: The Insider/Outsider Labor Divide and Attitudes toward Different Welfare Programs in Mexico

Survey of a nationally representative sample of Mexican adults. (N=1,206). Questions focus on respondents' labor-market traits and social policy attitudes. Interviews occurred in May and June of 2017. Abstract: In Latin America, formal workers (labor insiders) and informal workers (outsiders) tend to be enrolled in distinct welfare programs, so scholars generally assume that a fundamental political cleavage pits insiders against outsiders. According to my original meta-analysis, however, survey-based studies have hitherto shown the two groups to have relatively similar social policy preferences. I seek to reconcile these two scholarly strains by arguing that the insider/outsider binary oversimplifies. Frequent movement by workers between the two sectors and marriages between informal and formal workers endow many with mixed policy interests. Using an original and nationally representative poll of Mexican adults, I show that an insider/outsider attitudinal cleavage does exist but that it is widest between informal and formal workers without mixed interests. I also show how improved survey questions produce stronger relationships between labor traits and attitudes. My findings have implications for the study of social policy coalitions and insider/outsider politics in Latin America and beyond.