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To Cut or Not to Cut

A Cross-National Comparison of Attitudes Toward Wage Flexibility

McGill University

ANTHONY C. MASI

McGill University

MICHAEL R. SMITH

McGill University

JOSEPH SMUCKER

Concordia University

This article provides an empirical assessment of the social psychological underpinnings of arguments that link labor market security to wage flexibility. We employ data from two surveys of blue-collar manufacturing workers, one from Canada and the other from Sweden, that were conducted by the respective national statistics agencies. The dependent variable is a dichotomy tapping respondents' willingness to take a wage cut to save their jobs. Independent variables index a variety of objective and subjective labor market conditions and experiences. We test two hypotheses. The first, that Canadians should be more willing than Swedes to accept a pay cut, is amply supported. The second, that observed differences between Swedes and Canadians should be due to higher levels of anxiety about labor market prospects among the latter, found no support whatsoever in our logistic regression analyses. We conclude with speculative alternative explanations and suggestions for additional comparative research.

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