Amplifying impact of labour market flexibility on right-wing populism in the EU countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of labour market flexibility on the share of right-wing populism votes within a balanced panel dataset of 21 European Union countries between 1995 and 2020. The findings indicate that greater labour market flexibility leads to an increase in populist votes. The evidence is robust to various sensitivity analyses, i.e. utilising different econometric techniques, including various controls (e.g. the role of globalisation), and excluding outliers. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.