Developing Political Trust at Work How Socialization Experiences in the Workplace Reduce Inequalities in Political Trust

Political trust is considered important for the stability of democratic political systems. However, there are large inequalities in political trust between groups in society, especially along educational lines. We focus on how these political inequalities develop in adult life. Specifically, we link political socialization in the workplace to political trust. We test how political socialization in the workplace fosters political trust and whether it compensates for or reinforces inequalities in political trust between educational groups. We use self-collected unique survey data (N = 2799) and show that political socialization in the workplace relates to political trust: political discussions, an open workplace climate, influencing organizational policies, and having positive experiences with workplace voice are positively related to political trust. Furthermore, we find no support that political socialization in the workplace increases the inequalities in political trust between educational levels but rather that there is a compensatory effect of political socialization in the workplace.