Study Shows Employers Powerfully Shape Voter Turnout

While political campaigns expend hundreds of millions of dollars on door-knocks, social media ads and phone banks to move voter turnout by a mere point or two, new research co-authored by University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business Assistant Professor Reuben Hurst points to a more decisive driver of civic engagement: the American workplace.

In the working paper “Where Americans Work Shapes Whether They Vote: Evidence From 30 Million U.S. Workers,” Hurst — alongside co-authors Justin Frake (University of Michigan), Matthew Lee (Harvard Kennedy School of Government) and Max Kagan (Columbia University) — conducted one of the largest empirical studies of workplace voter turnout to date. 

To uncover how employer culture influences voting habits, the research team compiled a massive dataset by linking LinkedIn employment records to public U.S. voter files for 377,000 employers, covering a broad sample of 30 million American workers.

A key question was whether workplaces actually influence voting behavior, or whether civically engaged people simply tend to work for the same kinds of employers. To find out, the researchers tracked 8 million workers who changed jobs. By comparing voting rates before and after employees moved to new companies, they identified the role workplace culture may play in encouraging people to vote, separate from personal characteristics and life experiences they brought with them.

Key Findings

The researchers found that where people work can meaningfully shape whether they participate in elections:

• Changing jobs can influence voting: People who move to an employer with a stronger culture of civic participation become more likely to vote.
• Workplace culture matters: Employees who move from workplaces with relatively low voter participation to those with much higher participation see an even greater increase in their likelihood of voting.
• Effects extend beyond election day: The impact was consistent across political affiliations and was especially strong in primary elections, where turnout is often low. The researchers also found that civic habits developed at work can influence household members and continue even after employees leave the company.

Putting Findings into Practice

The study's practical implications were recently highlighted in a Fortune commentary by business leaders Tom Florsheim Jr. of Weyco Group and Adam Goodman of Goodmans Interior Structures. They pointed to straightforward steps employers can take to encourage civic engagement, including flexible work schedules, clear communication about voting deadlines, paid time off to vote or serve as poll workers, and workplace voter registration efforts. These approaches, they wrote, can help companies put the study's findings into action.

Hurst says the study demonstrates that workplace environment is a key determinant of civic participation, offering a nonpartisan pathway to building stronger communities. 

Read “Where Americans Work Shapes Whether They Vote: Evidence From 30 Million U.S. Workers” at SSRN.