We've Got You Covered: Employer and Employee Responses to Dobbs v. Jackson

Abstract

Amidst rising political polarization, firms engage more frequently with political issues through public statements and policies. This paper examines how firms' stances on polarizing issues impact worker sorting, leveraging announcements from hundreds of employers following the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturning federal abortion rights. We introduce a new methodology to uncover labor market competitors for each announcing firm based on job seekers' revealed preferences. While announcing firms received more applications from job seekers, particularly in Democratic-leaning states and female-dominated jobs where abortion was outlawed, employee satisfaction declined, particularly among male-dominated jobs. Smaller companies with less-established reputations experienced the largest effects. A firm's political reputation thus impacts its ability to hire and retain workers. When deciding whether to engage in sociopolitical speech, firms face a complicated trade-off: attract culturally-aligned workers at the expense of alienating current ones.

Keywords: Job search, gender, politics, abortion, culture, job satisfaction

JEL Classification: M14, J13, J16