The social orientations and ideologies of UK finance employees at the onset of the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

Debates about the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007 have pointed at institutional and individual-behavioural factors as its causes. Using the British Household Panel Survey, this paper highlights marked differences in perceptions of societal and economic fairness among financial services employees in investment or management positions in the UK, and the general working population at the brink of the GFC. Panel data analysis suggests that financial services and occupations did not necessarily attract employees with pro-market attitudes, but that employment in these institutions and occupations made it more likely that employees came to display these perceptions, contributing to the construction of a distinct attitudinal profile of finance employees.