Relationship of Work-Related Stress and Offline Social Leisure on Political Participation of Voters in the United States

Oldřich Šubrt
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Oldřich Šubrt: Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam, 1000 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-35

Abstract: In the United States (US), citizens’ political participation is 15%. Contemporary psychological models explaining political participation are based on education and socioeconomic status, which are unable to explain the overall low political participation figures. The study suggests a holistic approach, with two societal tendencies: increasing work-related stress and diminishing offline social leisure, together with a mediating effect of participatory efficacy to assess associations with the political participation of US voters. The quantitative correlational study uses structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis on the General Social Survey representative sample of US voters ( N = 295, M age = 44.49, SD = 13.43), controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Work-related stress was not significantly associated with political participation ( β = 0.08, p = 0.09). Offline social leisure was positively associated with political participation ( β = 0.28, p < 0.001). The mediating effect of participatory efficacy on the relationship between offline social leisure and political participation was positive and significant ( β = 0.05, p < 0.001). Additional analyses, regression and SEM on the European Social Survey sample ( N = 27,604) boosted internal and external validity. Results indicate that offline social leisure is more predictive than education and socioeconomic status, showing that examining societal trends leads to a better understanding of political participation.

Keywords: political participation; work-related stress; offline social leisure; participatory efficacy; resource theory of political participation; critical theory; neoliberal society; American workforce; United States electorate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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