Social and Behavioral Barriers to Exercising Workplace Rights

2026-10-09

2026-11-19

The study's primary outcomes are:

1. **Perceptions of labor standards violations:** Respondents' assessments of the seriousness, unfairness, and legality of hypothetical workplace violations.

2. **Perceived consequences and social acceptability of reporting:** Respondents' expectations about how different reporting actions affect the reporting worker and their coworkers, as well as their own approval and their perceptions of coworkers' approval of these actions.

3. **Willingness to report workplace violations:** Respondents' stated willingness to report hypothetical violations, including their choices and rankings of different reporting channels (e.g., coworkers, management, outside organizations, and government enforcement agencies).

4. **Information-seeking behavior:** Whether respondents click a link to obtain additional information about their workplace rights and protections.

1. **Perceptions of labor standards violations:** Respondents' assessments of the seriousness, unfairness, and legality of hypothetical workplace violations.

2. **Perceived consequences and social acceptability of reporting:** Respondents' expectations about how different reporting actions affect the reporting worker and their coworkers, as well as their own approval and their perceptions of coworkers' approval of these actions.

3. **Willingness to report workplace violations:** Respondents' stated willingness to report hypothetical violations, including their choices and rankings of different reporting channels (e.g., coworkers, management, outside organizations, and government enforcement agencies).

4. **Information-seeking behavior:** Whether respondents click a link to obtain additional information about their workplace rights and protections.

We conduct a series of randomized survey experiments with approximately 10,000 hourly workers in the U.S. retail and food-service industries, embedded in the national Shift survey. The experiments vary features of hypothetical workplace violations and reporting decisions, as well as the information workers receive about labor standards violations and enforcement. We examine how these experimental treatments affect workers' perceptions of workplace violations, expectations about reporting, willingness to take action, and information-seeking behavior.

Not available

Respondents are randomly assigned to experimental conditions using computer-generated randomization implemented through the Qualtrics survey platform. Randomization is conducted automatically within the survey.

Individual survey respondent. All experimental treatments are randomized at the individual level, with no cluster-level randomization.

No

10,000 individual respondents (no cluster-level randomization).

Approximately 10,000 hourly workers in the U.S. retail and food-service industries.

The study includes four experiments, each targeting approximately 10,000 respondents:

- **Vignette Experiment 1:** Six treatment conditions in a 2 × 3 factorial design, with approximately 1,667 respondents per condition.
- **Vignette Experiment 2:** Five treatment conditions, with approximately 2,000 respondents per condition.
- **Information Experiment 1:** Information treatment (5,000); control group 1 (2,500); control group 2 (2,500).
- **Information Experiment 2:** Video treatment (5,000); control group 1 (2,500); control group 2 (2,500).

All treatment assignments occur at the individual respondent level. The same respondents participate in multiple experiments, so these sample sizes are not additive across experiments.