Falling Union Membership and Rising Wage Inequality: What's the Connection?
Falling Union Membership and Rising Wage Inequality: What's the Connection?
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工会会员人数下降与工资不平等加剧：有什么联系？
DOI：
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发表时间：
1998
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
David Card
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文献类型：
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作者：
David Card
本文提出了新的证据，改变工会成员的影响，在美国劳动力市场的工资分散的趋势。我使用20世纪70年代中期和90年代初的数据来比较工资分布中不同十分位数工人的工会会员率，并计算工会主义转变对工资不平等的影响。在男子中，大多数群体的工会比率都有所下降，最低工资工人的下降幅度更大。我估计，在过去25年中，工会的减少解释了男性工资不平等上升的10%-20%。在妇女中，低工资工人的工会成员人数减少，但高工资工人的工会成员人数增加，总体变化不大。因此，工会模式的改变对女性不平等的影响甚微，实际上可能加剧了不平等的加剧。整个经济体的工会成员趋势掩盖了私营部门和公共部门之间的巨大差异，私营部门的工会成员人数一直在减少，而公共部门的大多数群体的工会成员人数实际上有所增加。按部门进行的计算表明，工会在阻止公共部门男女工人工资不平等加剧方面发挥了重要作用。
This paper presents new evidence on the effects of changing union membership on trends in wage dispersion in the U.S. labor market. I use data from the mid-1970s and early 1990s to compare union membership rates for workers in different deciles of the wage distribution, and to calculate the effects of shifting unionism on wage inequality. Among men, union rates have fallen for most groups, with larger declines among the lowest-wage workers. I estimate that the decline in unions explains 10-20 percent of the rise in male wage inequality over the past 25 years. Among women, union membership has fallen for low-wage workers but risen for high-wage workers, with little change overall. Shifting union patterns have therefore had little effect on female inequality, and may have actually accentuated the rise in inequality. Economy-wide trends in union membership mask a sharp divergence between the private sector, where unions have been declining, and the public sector, where union membership rates have actually risen for most groups. Calculations by sector suggest that unions have been a significant force in forestalling the rise in wage inequality among public sector workers of both genders.