Replication Data for: A decline in the social status of the working class? Conflicting evidence for 8 Western countries, 1987-2017

The consensus view among political scientists is that the subjective social status of low-skilled workers has declined over the last decades, and this status loss of the working class is seen as contributing to the rise of the radical right. We examine the micro-foundation of this claim by tracing the evolution of subjective status for different social classes in Europe and the US. We use all available survey rounds of the ISSP 1987- 2017 and replicate findings with the ESS 2002-2016. While unskilled workers perceive their status to be lower than members of the middle class everywhere, we find no relative or absolute fall in their subjective social status over time. Unskilled workers were at the bottom of the status hierarchy in the 1990s and 2010s. Our findings throw doubt on the narrative that sees workers’ falling subjective social status as a prominent driver behind the rise of the radical right.政治科学领域的普遍共识认为，近数十年来低技能劳动者的主观社会地位持续下滑，工人阶级的这一地位损失被视为助推激进右翼势力崛起的重要因素。本研究通过追踪欧美地区不同社会阶层主观社会地位的演变，对该论断的微观基础展开检验。我们采用了国际社会调查项目（International Social Survey Programme，ISSP）1987-2017年的全部可用调查轮次数据，并使用欧洲社会调查（European Social Survey，ESS）2002-2016年的数据复现了相关研究结果。尽管在所有研究区域中，低技能劳动者均认为自身地位低于中产阶级成员，但我们并未发现其主观社会地位随时间出现相对或绝对的下滑。在20世纪90年代与2010年代，低技能劳动者始终处于社会地位层级的底端。本研究的发现对“劳动者主观社会地位下滑是激进右翼势力崛起的核心驱动因素”这一叙事提出了质疑。