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Political segregation in the US workplace
Justin Frake1, Reuben Hurst2, Max Kagan3
1Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Nature Human Behaviour
|June 22, 2026
Summary
Political segregation is prevalent in U.S. workplaces, with coworkers often sharing similar political affiliations. This workplace sorting has remained consistent over time, indicating a stable pattern of political homophily among employees.
Area of Science:
- Sociology
- Political Science
- Labor Economics
Background:
- Workplace environments can influence social and political interactions.
- Understanding political segregation is crucial for analyzing social cohesion and workplace dynamics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the extent of political segregation in U.S. workplaces.
- To examine how political segregation varies across different demographic and professional groups.
- To assess the temporal stability of workplace political segregation.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a large dataset comprising over 45 million U.S. workers.
- Statistical estimation of political segregation using coworker political affiliation data.
- Controlling for geographical, industrial, and occupational factors.
Main Results:
- Significant political segregation exists, with Democrats' coworkers being more Democratic and Republicans' coworkers being more Republican.
- Adjusted segregation levels (2.9 pp) are comparable to gender segregation.
- Segregation is more pronounced among politically active individuals and senior executives.
- Republicans have higher exposure to Democrats than vice versa.
- Political segregation levels remained stable between 2012 and 2024.
Conclusions:
- U.S. workplaces exhibit substantial political segregation, suggesting that individuals tend to work with politically like-minded colleagues.
- This segregation is robust to controls for key confounding factors and shows limited change over time.
- Findings highlight the pervasiveness of political homophily in the American workforce.
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