Does workplace participation further the development of political interest and political participation?

Following the spillover hypothesis developed by Pateman, this article examines if and how the level of political interest and participation is affected by occupational characteristics. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), the analyses show an infra-individual increase of political interest, if the level of occupational autonomy is rising. However, to see this effect one has to focus on questions directly asking for the working conditions. In contrast, increasing managerial responsibility does not lead to higher political interest or participation. Further, the results indicate that there are strong selection effects and early political socialization is of great importance. Thereby, a large part of political engagement is due to previous learning processes and the social background.