Reinforcing the educational divide at work. How access to workplace political socialisation increases differences in political participation

We argue that the educational inequalities reflected in political participation rates also exist in workplace involvement, with higher educated individuals participating more in both realms. We also argue that workplace involvement reinforces educational differences in political participation. We scrutinise the effects of workplace involvement, political discussion and social capital acquisition in the workplace. Using data from 3037 workers from the Dutch labour force, we find that the higher educated have more access to workplace political socialisation than the lower educated. In turn, political socialisation in the workplace is positively related to political participation. Our findings suggest that political inequalities arising from educational differences are reinforced by people’s workplace experiences.