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Title: The Determinants of Workers' Union Status: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Leigh, Duane E.
The Determinants of Workers' Union Status: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys
Journal of Human Resources 20,4 (Fall 1985): 555-566.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/145684
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): Geographical Variation; Occupations; Racial Differences; Unions

According to the literature on determinants of union status, substantial differences exist in the likelihood of union membership by persons with various characteristics. It is unknown if this trend is due to differences in individual worker's preferences for union representation rather than differences in the availability of unionized jobs; Farber (1983) encountered a censoring problem in estimating his queue for explaining the process. However, using the 1980 wave of the Young Men Cohort of the NLS largely avoids this problem and permits direct estimation of crucial probabilities associated with the model. There are important differences in econometric methodologies and the data sets analyzed, but the results support Farber's conclusion that queuing for vacancies in existing union jobs is an important labor market phenomenon. Supply constraints on the availability of union jobs dominate worker preferences in explaining differences in extent of unionization by occupation and region.
Bibliography Citation
Leigh, Duane E. "The Determinants of Workers' Union Status: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys." Journal of Human Resources 20,4 (Fall 1985): 555-566.