Unemployment and Redistributive Attitudes during and after the Impressionable Years

The significance of the impressionable years for the formation of political attitudes is widely acknowledged. What remains unclear is whether these early impressions have lasting effects on adult political attitudes even when socio-economic circumstances change in adulthood. This article focuses on unemployment as one example of a major socio-economic change. Its central question is whether unemployment impacts redistributive attitudes distinctly during early adulthood, i.e. the impressionable years, compared to later in life. Conceptually, we disentangle the influence of the impressionable years from two other potential socialization phases: early socialization during childhood and adolescence and subsequent adult-life experiences within the labour market. To meet these conceptual expectations, the article employs FEIS panel analyses that control for changes in unemployment risk over time and time-constant unemployment risk levels, thus extending traditional fixed effects (FE) models. Findings based on LISS panel data from the Netherlands (2008-2025) reaffirm the importance of the impressionable years: unemployment increases redistributive support during early adulthood but not later in life. Excluding the oldest age group, findings are not attributable to changes in objective or subjective unemployment risk, suggesting that the impact of the impressionable years might decrease towards the end of employees' careers. Difference-in-difference estimation, impact functions, analyses during and after the economic crisis, and other alternative specifications show the robustness of these results. In sum, this article highlights the relevance of the impressionable years even in light of a severe economic shock.