does workplace stress lower civic engagement?

The Los Angeles Times’ Alana Semuels reports, “The relentless drive for efficiency at U.S. companies has created a new harshness in the workplace. In their zeal to make sure that not a minute of time is wasted, companies are imposing rigorous performance quotas, forcing many people to put in extra hours, paid or not. Video cameras and software keep tabs on worker performance, tracking their computer keystrokes and the time spent on each customer service call.”

In a companion piece, she argues that the rising stress and longer hours also push down community engagement. She quotes me:

Political engagement often declines when the workplace is a harsher place. Unions were once a driving force behind civic engagement at work, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Now that they’re such a small part of the private workforce, there’s no one at work encouraging employees to go out and vote, he said.

When people don’t like their jobs, or feel stressed at them, they’re also not predisposed to volunteer in the community, give blood, or participate in food drives organized through their employer (if, indeed, their employer still organizes food or blood drives or community activities).

“If they don’t like their employer, it’s not going to be a path to engagement,” he said.

I think the key issue here is the quality of work and the degree to which the employer empowers its workers (or they organize against the company). The sheer number of hours of work is less important.

In Bowling Alone (2000, p. 202) Robert Putnam argued that working more did indeed reduce hours spent on civic activities–but not by much. He estimated that rising economic pressures and the voluntary entry of women into the workforce had accounted for “less than one tenth of the total decline” of civic engagement that he found from 1970-2000.

Of course, Bowling Alone measured unpaid, after-hours work. If we’re fortunate, our paid work can serve public and democratic purposes, even if our employer is a for-profit corporation.

Besides, employment can raise civic and political engagement outside of work. We can be recruited at work and can find peers with similar needs and concerns. Skills that we acquire at work may translate into the civic and political domains. And just getting out of the house can give a person momentum. An old maxim says that if you want something done, you should ask a busy person. That could be because some people are just energetic and effective (a psychological explanation), or because busy people obtain networks and resources that make action rewarding and effective.

One would think that attending college while working substantial hours per week would force individuals out of civic life. However, in “The Political Participation of College Students, Working Students and Working Youth” (CIRCLE Working Paper 37, 2005), Sharon E. Jarvis, Lisa Montoya & Emily Mulvoy find that “student workers report higher levels of political interest, political skills, political mobilization and political participation than their college student and working youth peers.”

Having said all that, I think Semuels is onto an important story about the suppressive effects of work today. It’s not so much the longer hours as the lack of workers’ organizations, the fragmentation of the workforce, the weakening civic mission of many firms and organizations, and the atmosphere of surveillance that likely reduces civic and political participation.

Semuels writes, “Civic engagement has been proved to help people flourish, Levine said. They develop skills that help them at work, they’re less depressed and they live longer, he said.” Work that involves public problem-solving can therefore be good for the worker as well as the society. When work lacks a public dimension, unpaid civic engagement can be a partial antidote, giving the worker a sense of purpose and value (and also imparting skills and network ties that can lead to better careers). But if a job suppresses civic participation outside of work, then the negative psychological impact may compound. It will then be even harder for a person to get engaged in order to improve her community, her work environment, and her personal well-being.

See also: soft skills for the 21st century workplace: empowered teamwork or emotional labor?

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.