Divisiones del sector de empleo y comportamiento político en la clase de servicio. España, 1989-2000

Abstract

The sector of employment, public or private, has been considered an influencing variable on political behaviour. The most spread thesis asserts that people who work in the private sector support above all conservative parties or those parties that stand for cutting down taxes, and those working in the public sector will vote for labour or socialist parties or those parties that support the expansion of the public administration. The Spanish case had not been well studied, and the work that I present here analyse only the behaviour of the service class. The main conclusions achieved are: 1. The relationship between employment sector and vote has been very stable during the researched period (1989-2000); 2. The sector effect on vote has been a small one, and it has been partially due to the different sector's occupational composition; 3. The only party that has been influenced by sector for long is Izquierda Unida (United Left).