“Let that sink in”: The Politics and Policy Preferences of Tech Workers

What do tech workers stand for? As the power of tech workers grows, both as people responsible for information infrastructures and as a political force, it is critical to understand their policy preferences and attitudes. We use the European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme data to analyze tech workers’ attitudes in cultural and economic policy domains, as well as their trust in the establishment. Beyond offering an empirical description of this domain, we expand existing primarily US-focused research and offer a comparative perspective. Our findings show that while the cultural liberalism of US tech workers tends to replicate in samples outside the US, the economic preferences and anti-establishment sentiments do not. In addition, developers stand out as having more extreme preferences, compared to non-developers working in tech and to other professional elites. These results challenge assumptions about tech workers’ homogeneity and highlight the role of the demographic composition of the industry. We conclude by discussing potential implications for theory and policy.