How Does Workplace Affect Employee Political Efficacy in China?

Workplaces are a primary setting for many people’s political learning and participation. It is, therefore, academically and practically meaningful to assess how workplace experience shapes employees’ political efficacy. This article employs multiple linear regression models to empirically analyse the relationship between perceived workplace autonomy and political efficacy based on representative national survey data from China. It then addresses potential self-selection bias and endogeneity problems through various approaches, including propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage instrumental variable (IV) estimations. The findings reveal that the extent of perceived workplace autonomy has a significantly positive correlation with both internal and external political efficacy. Moreover, the results demonstrate that under contemporary China’s sociopolitical circumstances, the correlation patterns between perceived workplace autonomy and external political efficacy differ significantly between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, highlighting the moderation effects of job sectors. However, the moderation effect of job sectors does not apply to the correlation between perceived workplace autonomy and internal political efficacy, indicating that distinctions exist between internal and external political efficacy.